That being said, we're back. At least today.
Here goes a lot of random updates in no particular order....
Darrell is Assistant Scoutmaster/2nd Counselor in the YM Presidency/Deacon's Quorom Advisor in our ward and is super stoked. He really liked working with the youth in our last ward (as did I) and enjoys the guy he serves with and knowing this means he gets to do a lot more playing, camping, scout stuff, etc.
We continue to work on the house in varying speeds. I repainted the kitchen a few weeks ago, we're still replacing light switches and outlets, and finally finished reattaching all of the baseboards and almost finished caulking them all. We found a deal on a bed frame (still amazingly didn't have one for our king-sized bed we bought over a year ago that came with attached nightstands on KSL, and then proceeded to buy the matching dresser from IKEA so we could stop sharing drawers in our previous little one. Oh the little things... After I post this we need to go put sheets back on our bed; otherwise I would show you all a picture of our pretty new set up in our room.
This morning we woke up to no hot water and discovered that our water heater had a leak from the intake hose that had soaked through the insulation and down to the burner pan. Ergo, the pilot light went out and we couldn't get it to spark to re-light. Thankfully the guy who had installed it for us was a friend from our previous ward and he could run over this morning so we didn't have to worry about a leaking water heater and remain unshowered for too long. Then again, what's life without a Sunday morning Euro shower every so often to remind you how grateful you are that your water heater usually works and pumps out ridiculously, wonderfully hot water whenever you want?
We have neighbors we adore and were happy to go watch previous Aggies win the Superbowl tonight while eating good food. Don't even try to pretend the food isn't the best part.
We also celebrated Erika's birthday last Sunday. Sorry this is the only picture we got. She made her own birthday dessert because, let's face it, she has gone to culinary school and we haven't. No idea what it was called but it was definitely fancier than what Darrell and I would have made. We apparently were out of candles.
A couple weekends ago we also went up to Park City to see the World Cup finals for aerial jumps. It was a blast. We love free events with free parking and awesome entertainment. The jumps were incredible and we even saw a unicorn and I stealth photographed Devon Sandoval after stalking him for a few minutes and sneaking a few shots while he turned around to watch the best jump of the night.... Worth it. (He plays for RSL if you don't know who he is.) Sorry the pictures aren't great. We usually use our phones, and we all know what that does to photos.
We rented snowshoes from REI and picked a mellow hike for our first time-Donut Falls. We've never been there during the summer but after having seen it in the winter, I have a feeling we will be going back. It was beautiful. Thanks to the snowshoes we made it up the rocks to the actual waterfall, which is through hole in the rocks, and went into the cavern to see it up close. It was half frozen and was gorgeous from any angle.
Darrell has also been getting in some skiing, ward basketball, and playing goalie for an intermural team. He's a lot cooler than me. I went for a run on a canal trail behind our house the other day because the air quality finally didn't suck, but that's about it.
We attempted to go see the ice castles up in Midway with friends of ours, but mistakenly thought that would be a good idea on a Saturday night. It wasn't. We stood in the massively long line for about 20 minutes, drinking our hot chocolate, decided it wasn't worth waiting another 2 1/2 hours, and drove home. We played games and got pizza instead. Probably for the best.
Lastly, Darrell and I took another hike on MLK day because I got off early enough for us to do something before the sun went down. We went to find a waterfall this time, too, and this time it was just a couple miles from our house. We're pretty happy with the area where we are living and its proximity to trails. Now we are just waiting for the snow to melt so we can start mountain biking. And gardening. Lots of yard work this year... Oi, I just got overwhelmed thinking about all that we have to get done in the house before then. I'm going to go. Hope we'll be back sooner rather than later!
P.s. We have been wanting to see Captain Phillips for a few weeks and finally Redbox'ed it along with Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 this week. We recommend both. And yes, they are very different genres. We're just cool like that.
P.p.s. Still weirds me out how I type pretty much how I talk. You're welcome.
