February 2014

February. We did some stuff. And if I didn't have pictures I wouldn't remember it. 

But first, a few things about the fun classes I'm taking this semester.

Here is one of my attempts at a corsage. Floral design is part of the required work for the Hort major, otherwise I don't think I would have taken this class, but I really love it. And I have complete and total respect for florists now. Wooza. So much skill is involved in seemingly simple things, I could never be a floral designer. 

Obviously, part of the class is flower i.d. Honestly, I could probably identify maybe 5 flowers before this class, but I'm getting close to the 100 mark now, and I think that's pretty cool. 

 

 

My second fun class this semester is clothing construction, but it is actually really hard and stressful. Here is my shirt pattern all laid out and ready to cut.

 

And here's a pair of PJ pants I made. This was our second project, the shirt is our third, and we'll be finishing the semester with a skirt. 

But seriously, the class is hard. The teacher looks at every stitch and measures everything and ahhhhh. Kind of takes the fun out of sewing, but I've learned a lot and that's what I wanted. 

  

David totally won at Valentine's Day this year. I don't care what your husband did or how much he spent, David still totally wins. The only thing we planned was trying out Chiz's- a small restaurant in St.Anthony. We drove up to St.Anthony to find that the place is beyond packed, duh, so we drove back to Rexburg and just went to Arby's. (But we did try Chiz's last weekend and it was glorious.) We went home and contemplated going to see Thor at the cheap theater. But then David whips out a treasure hunt for me! He had little clues hidden all around the house and shop attached to something- a stack of pallets he collected (I have a few projects on my to do list), a throw pillow (you can see some of it in the picture below), new boots that he got a stealer deal on (see RV photo below), and this sign that he made!

 

I was so shocked to see this and everything else. And then to see that he made this whole thing himself just brought me to tears. This is one of my favorite songs from the musical "Guys and Dolls" and I'll sing it to my mister every now and then. He found these boards, put them together, stained them, mixed paint until he had the perfect color, laid out stencils, and painted the letters in. Ohhhh my heart, my heart, be still. It is seriously so perfectly adorable and so well made. I love it so much. I should have been tipped off though because earlier in the week I texted him a line of this song (I love you, a bushel and a peck), and he responded right back with the next phrase (And a hug around the neck). So I texted the next phrase (and a barrel and a heap), and he got right back with the line after that one (and I'm talkin' in my sleep about you!). Because he'd looked up the words and was painting them totally under my nose. The other thing that totally surprised me about how he did so much, and I had no idea, is that he also had a chemistry test on Valentine's Day that he had been studying for all week. Not only was he working hard to do well on that (and he did sooo well on it!) but he was creating this thing of beauty for me. My oh my if I didn't pick a good one.  

Our friend, Janet, works for Bisch's RV, so we went to visit her at the RV show in IF on our Monday off. They had this darling little photo booth set up. My mind was BLOWN AWAY with how fancy RV's and trailers are these days. Holy moly. 

Speaking of our friends (yes, we made friends!), we tried to make an igloo in the front yard with Brandon and Janet. We got the snow all piled up in one place, and then you have to wait to let it "compact." At least, that's Brandon the igloo building expert said. And of course after we get our mountain built we don't have snow for 2 weeks and everything melts. Sigh. But it did snow all day yesterday, and it's supposed to be colder this week, so maybe we'll get to dig out our igloo after all.

AND THEN we had a spontaneous trip down to Utah. We really wanted to play with family, and we'd been thinking heading down there for a quick weekend for a while. And then Friday morning we got a text from Joseph saying that we should come down and pick him up from the SLC airport (as he had a job interview in Salt Lake that weekend). So we decided to go for it. And it was great. We finished classes and work on Friday and got to Provo around 10 that night. We played hard on Saturday and then just hung out on Sunday. And it just so happened that my brother, Daniel, and his wife, Tricia, were singing in sacrament mtg for their ward and I was able to be their piano accompanist on Sunday. No wonder we felt so good about bugging out of town. We got to see a lot of family and offer some of our services- taxi, child care, and piano skills. Pretty much, it's a really sad situation if we're not your aunt, uncle, brother, or sister. ;)

I got to hang out with these guys all day on Saturday as we rode the train up to Salt Lake and then played in the city. (David was grabbing Joe from the airport and they went to the BYU basketball game) Afterwards we met up with everyone for dinner. We got to see Daniel's family and Jenette and just enjoy being with the fam.

Krugh was beyond excited to ride the train, always saying things from Thomas the Train- clickety clack down the track....

And Jade is beyond adorable always. 

Just look at that face!!!! (not mine) She kind of looks like she's from Whoville in this picture. tehehe.

And we finally got to see this new little one. She is such a doll! Such a happy, happy, girl that just smiles at you all day long. (I didn't think to get a picture of her when she was actually awake.)   

Good gravy, I wanted to take her home with us.

December 2013/ January 2014

We finished our first semester in Idaho. David made it through chemistry and his other multiple difficult fun classes. And then we wandered down to Panaca and stayed there for a week. And then we went farther south to Henderson and stayed there almost a week. And then we wandered back on up to Rexburg to start another semester. It was so lovely to relax and play with family. We managed to stop in and see all of our siblings and grandparents up and down the I-15. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get pictures with everyone. 

 Before we left Rexburg: Snow, snow everywhere!

 

We didn't get a tree, again, but the good ol' Charlie Brown tree worked just great, again! Thanks Mom (connie) for handing that over to me a few years ago.

             

 Pictures from Panaca:

 This one picture deserves a full on story. Suffice it to say that David and Preston could not call it quits on the one-ups, and this is how it ended-- locked out! (Also, please check out David's on trend style of pants tucked in to boots. ha!)

 

Annual ice-fishin' trip where lil' Miss caught her first fish!

I thought for sure I would win this thing as I had two fish out before any of the men hooked anything. But then I had a whole lot of nothing til' the end, and by then it was too late. Papa and David: 9  Giulia: 4.  I don't remember what everybody else got. I think Zach got up to 5. (I do know that I did not come in last. But I won't mention names.)

Family Pictures!

Not many people can say that they seriously LOVE their inlaws. I am one lucky girl.

            

Spotlighting

Catchin' cats! (We weren't there for this, but David did help P set up his traps so we were pretty excited to see these pictures. Ch has a bobcat and P has a fox)

We left P-town on Sunday and headed over to Cedar City to listen to Ryan's homecoming address! It was great because we were able to catch all of the Robbins in one place. He talked about being truly converted to the Gospel. It was a great talk.

After the homecoming party we headed to Henderson where we played with some of my family and whoever from the Robbins that we could. Cough cough, no pictures. We were reallllly hoping that Shelly would have baby #4 while we there. Ah well. Also, a couple hundo later, David was able to replace the exhaust manifold on the jeep that busted on our way down. We're glad it decided to break when we were in Henderson so David had access to Grandpa's shop and tools to fix it himself.

The day before we left Nevada we stole Felicia and the kiddos from her inlaws and spent the afternoon at Chicken Shack, Ethel M's, and the airport runway watching planes take off and land.

It was such a lovely afternoon! Good company and beautiful weather! I think it was in the 60's that day. It felt so nice and got us excited about spring up north.

                     

We then started the journey back north. We stayed at Grandpa and Grandma Young's for the evening and Jenette got to come over and hang out. The next morning we went to Ikea- our first time! And then we visited with Grandmama for a bit.
By that evening we found ourselves in Logan, UT playing with this sweet thing.

It was close to her birthday and we went to the Elk Reserve to celebrate.

I've never been that close to an elk before. Very cool!  The elk are free to come and go as they please. This is just a place for them to winter so they don't go down the canyon and get hit by a car or destroy lawns, meet a tragic end, etc. One of the elk they had tagged came in from Jackson, WY. I never realized that these guys move so far!

Big horsies!

This was a poster in the window of the visitor's center. It made me giggle! It says, "Catch 'em, keep 'em. Well, maybe it's little more complicated than that, but research shows that people who fish are more successful in relationships. Fishing licenses make great holiday gifts!" Harharhar.

We made it back to Rexburg and started the winter semester two days later. We're both just under 12 credits- it's our off semester and we grabbed as many classes as we could. It's nice not being as stressed and busy as last semester when we were both taking 15 credits. We're so not stressed that we've had time to finally put the trim up around the hall closet doors, and we also put up the decorative trim around my cute little command center. 

And we've had time to decorate a little. This little house is becoming our home.

And baby Wyatt finally arrived! This is nephew #6 for us. We can't wait to meet him!

That pretty much covers us through January. 

Happy New Year! and Happy 4 year anniversary! 

2013 was a good year filled with a lot of highs and enough lows to keep us balanced. :) I don't really intend to make our lives look rosy and perfect, but I just realized that I do tend to only write about the fun things that we did/happened. I'm a good forgetter and easily forget about the fun times we had if I don't have pictures of it. I'm also good at forgetting the reasons why I get upset- this is great for David. ;) And pictures don't generally get taken at particularly sad moments. And what I have pictures of is generally what I put on here in order for us to keep a family photo album. So, keep in mind all five of you readers out there: our life isn't rosy all the time, nor some of the time. It's full of early mornings and late nights working (on school or at work) and worrying about x,y,z. But at the end of the day, we choose to be happy. And that's what we'll continue to do and share here: happiness. 

Bring on 2014!

November 2013

Playing catch up 'round here.

 We left off at David's birthday. 

We celebrated by actually going out to eat. This is a rare event indeed. We dined at The Hickory here in town. It was tasty and affordable.

He requested a pizookie, or fruit pizza, instead of a cake or what have you, and I think it turned out darling!

We ate that whole thing within a matter of days. Two and a half to be precise. We are not ashamed. ;)

We decided to do our own little Thanksgiving dinner, just the two of us. 1) driving somewhere to meet family sounded exhausting. 2) We could have gone to the Erickson's and crashed their party, but I really wanted to try cooking a full-out thanksgiving spread on my own for the first time. 3) I wanted to make it a paleo meal. IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!!

As I made messes in the kitchen David one-cut his hair super short; it's never been that short before, and two- tried to keep up with cleaning all the dishes I was dirtying as I cooked. It was a great team effort.  After we barely even made a dent in all that food, we had some friends over for dessert. I made these lemon bars, and they are the best lemon bars I've ever had. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and these are more lemony/citrus than sweet. Did I mention no sugar and no flour? Score! Try it out!

Part of our preparations for going home for the two-week Christmas break was boiling our deer heads so we could bleach them out. This was David's Tuesdays project. It takes a while to boil the head and then peel and clean out everything. And we had two heads to get done. I say "we". David did all work. Tuesdays I'm gone all day.

And this just makes me giggle.

On one side of the counter we have the wildlife biologist student's project, and on the other side of the counter is the horticulture student's bonsai (and a coconut, haha).

Other than David's birthday and Thanksgiving, November flew by as we hunkered down for the end of the semester rush.

Trick or Treat- Team D&G style

Finally the day arrived that we have been counting down to for months! We both drew tags for Area 7 to hunt mule deer from Oct. 21-Nov. 5. We put in for this north east Nevada area way back in March knowing that we would be in eastern Idaho come hunting season and that we wouldn't have time or gas money to spend on getting down to areas 22-24, the ones David will forever call home. I (Giulia) had 3 bonus points accumulated from previous years so we were pretty confident that this would be my year. David, having drawn almost every year the past 4 years- the lucky son-of-a-gun, had nuttin'. So we put in as a party to 1) help David's odds of getting a tag and 2) if we had a successful draw we would be able to hunt the same area. Well botta boom botta bing! At the end of May we found out that we both had tags. Saweet!!! As we sit here writing about this adventure that we've waited 6+ months for, we're looking at each other like, "Now what?" Just kidding- we are now looking forward to Thanksgiving break which is only a few short weeks away, and then shortly after that it will be Christmas break!! We love this time of year. It goes by so quickly because of all the fun things there are to look forward to.

For the last week and a half, we have been preparing for our hunt. We worked longer hours each day to be able to get all of our hours in for our jobs; we kept longer nights to get more homework and tests done so that we would be able to miss classes Thursday afternoon and Friday; we sighted in the rifle; we went through gear; and the list goes on. When it came time to leave on Thursday around noon, we were so excited but so exhausted at the same time. The last weekish has been mid-term season which means exams in every class and big projects in others. Looking back now, we're amazed we were able to get everything done. And not just done, but done well AND DONE EARLY so that we could head out of town. After our very first week of school back in September, we looked at the schedules for our classes and test dates and assignment due dates. We had a one weekend gap between the start and end of our hunt where we didn't have any tests scheduled on a Friday. We had plenty of assignments etc. that were due on Friday, but we worked hard to have them submitted before Friday and we completed all of our mid-term exams that had open dates (you could take them throughout the week) finished before we left. We knew we only had one weekend to devote to our hunt and we wanted to make the most of it. Needless to say, it feels soooo great being able to just lay in bed on this Sunday afternoon with nothing more to tackle until we dive back into classes on Monday.

* when you click on a picture it will link you back to our photobucket where you will be able to see all of our pictures from the trip. *

 

We spent our Halloween dressed in camo while bugging out of Rexburg. We got to our area around 5:00 and used what daylight we had left to look around and get a feel for the terrain. We have never hunted this area before, so we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Most people with a tag for 7 hunt the Jarbridge mountains, but we didn't want to travel that far and be in a wilderness restricted area (meaning no motorized nothing, meaning difficult to get to where you want and get out with any game without a horse or pack mule, or need more time than two days to hike in and out) and we didn't want to be in a place where there were hunters everywhere. So David emailed the wildlife biologist for that area and she said to go to Contact, Nevada and hunt either side of highway 93. Contact, like most of Nevada, is a whole lot of nothing. Literally, there is a sign posted with the elevation, and that's it. As we were exploring Thursday night, our prospects of being able to fill a tag were looking dismal. We didn't see any widlife. No tracks. Just sage brush and rocks. This was on the east of the 93. As the sun set we made our way over to the west side of the highway and still didn't see much, but were given some hope after finding a few water holes and game trails. We made camp on a mountain side a few miles west of the highway and went to sleep just hoping to see something more than brush and rocks the next day.

   

Our campsite.

1) Can you see our red tent?

2) view from camp

3) view from camp

4) home sweet home!

   

Friday morning we rolled out of our sleeping bags after a rough night's sleep- the wind had the tent fly incessantly flapping and our air mattress must have got a hole in it as we slept on rocks most of the night. Giulia had first dibs for Friday, meaning she got to pack the rifle and choose if she wanted to take a shot or pass it on to David. We got to a knob on a hillside and glassed the large mountain to the north of where we sat. The sun wasn't quite up all the way and we weren't seeing a thing. But when the sun's rays finally hit the mountain side, it was like the sunshine ignited a burst of life. So much excitement just to feel disappointed again. All we saw were does, does, and more does. And then finally we saw one little 2 point buck pushing some does up the mountain. Shortly after sighting him, a bigger buck came charging in and pushed the little 2-fer out of the way. The poor little guy ran left and right and up and down trying to attract any doe he could find, and not one doe wanted anything to do with him. We watched the group of deer work their way higher up the mountain, (we were a few miles away watching this- a good scope is nice to have) wanting to see where they would bed down at and maybe put a stalk on the buck. Eventually, the group went over a hill and behind some rocks and we didn't see them come out, so we decided to head over there and get a closer look. And here's some videos to explain the rest of that story:

I haven't edited any of the video, so I apologize for the annoying wind. Also, will someone please tell that stupid girl to spit her gum out? sheesh.

video one.

video two

 *legally married note: I meant to say "officially married." Before we wed, we joked about how the marriage wouldn't be real until I filled my first deer tag.
**poor guy coughed up (part of) a lung

 

If you remember the movie, "Legally Blonde," with Reese Witherspoon, you can share a laugh with me while I say- Shooting a 4-point buck? What, like it's hard? JOKING, joking.

After quartering him out, we drove to Jackpot, NV, about 15 miles north, to get some ice. And then it was back to the mountains because we still had David's tag to fill. We didn't see anything else that day except a few does and probably that same little 2 point. We headed back to camp when the sun set, had a delicious tin-foil dinner, and snuggled down into our sleeping bags for another windy night on a bed of rocks. In the morning we went to the north side of the mountain where Giulia shot the day before (she shot on the south side). It was similar to the day before- as soon as the sun hit the hillside things came to life. We saw plenty of does, and no bucks. And then out of nowhere this big guy comes charging through trying to attract the ladies. He was a solid 4-point with deep forks, and David was excited. Thinking we were in for a long day on the hillside, we grabbed our packs and bundled up and left the warmth of the jeep. It was a cold and windy morning. And I'm not sure who gave these to us for Christmas last year, but they are awesome! David calls them our ninja masks.

Anywho, we crept along this trail that hasn't been used for a while, keeping our sights on this buck. This was about 9 in the morning. At one point the group of deer went up and over a ridge and they were out of sight. As we rounded a bend in the trail David spotted a buck bedded down on the hillside. We dropped down and sighted him in, thinking it was the same "monster" (monster is David's affectionate term for a nice big buck) that we saw drop out of sight. David decided to pull the trigger. He was soooo excited. We got up to him, and David's heart sank. It was not the monster. They look really similar, but sadly this one was not as large and in charge. (You can kind of see his frustration in the video) But good news- it's still a really good size and bigger than anything David's been able to shoot at before. So, hooray!

before the sun came up:

   

Sunshine! But still cold.

  

David's video is still loading to YouTube. We'll get it up asap.

 

We got David's deer quartered out and headed back to camp to enjoy lunch next to a warm fire. Then we packed up camp and headed back home to Idaho. We are loving Idaho so far and are glad to call it home.

Shortly after arriving, the shop was turned into a meat locker.

And then we celebrated our successful return by cooking up the tenderloins. Yum-o! We had Jake and Kate come up and try it, and they really liked it too. Yay for having food! ( I apologize if any of the above images disturb you, but I promise you that what is pictured is a much more humane process than what the meat that you buy at store goes through; also, much healthier.)

And to close: you know you go to school in Idaho when, telling your professor that you will miss his Thursday afternoon class because of a hunting trip and asking him what you can do to make up the points missed for that day, your professor tells you that he expects pictures and videos of the hunt on his desk on Monday. hahahaha. Love it!