June 2014

June flew by as I finished my internship, David kept up with online classes and taking care of the yard and garden.

We put in a fire pit! We love it! We went with the cheap way to put it together and used cinder blocks, that cut the price down about $100. :)

My garden!!!

Grass is coming in ok. Better than it used to look at least. :)

And the crab-apple tree is looking much healthier than it did last year.

After a day of boat inspections we ventured a little further north into Montana and checked out Cliff and Wade lakes. They are sooo beautiful! We decided to cook dinner at the lake and enjoy it for as long as we could. We will definitely be going back. With a boat and swimsuits next time. 

I made Uncle Klain's birthday cake! 70 years young!
We weren't really into celebrating birthdays, and we definitely never did chocolate cakes in the house I grew up in, so this was my first time making a chocolate cake. It turned out pretty good!

I finished my internship on June 14! It felt so good to come home and just be able to be home...until we left for another 3-day shift at the lake.

Floated the river with ward and my sweet visiting teachee took this awful photo! haha. I clearly didn't know where to look. David and I were the last ones in as we took our sweet time and fished the way down instead of paddling like crazy.

Headed over to Driggs for the Hunstman fireworks show.

Before the fireworks we drove into the Teton mountain range and hiked up to the Darby wind caves. It was great to be outside surrounded by beauty.

My sweet friend, Janet!
And oh yah, I'm 6 months pregnant!

 

Such a great show! One of the best I've seen. We definitely recommend it.

March 2014

Final project for my floral design class:

Celebrated my birthday with friends at Snake Bite. So yummy! We told them at dinner that there was a bun in the oven. At this point we had only told my mother and my future employers for my internship. So it was an exciting night. We see Brandon and Janet a lot and David, okay me too, was struggling to keep our little secret a secret for much longer. (photo taken outside restaurant. Downtown IF has random very large...art? pieces. Like skateboards, bikes, and other items that I can't remember right now...)

Came home from dinner to this beautifully arranged fruit pizza from David and Reed's Dairy ice cream from the Peacock's. Yum!

Went on a field trip with my horticulture propagation class to USU and drove by Pedro's house in Preston, ID on the way back. We got to meet with professors at USU and talk about their research, etc. We also stopped at the ISU extension site in Aberdeen to see the research work being done there. Lots of cool stuff and the only picture I took was of Pedro's house. ha! I was worried about this field trip all semester because I had been nauseous and tired and nauseous the last three months. But by the end of March, right in time for this trip, I was finally feeling ok again. It was a much appreciated blessing to not have to worry about being sick and still trying to be perky and act not pregnant alllll day with my peers and professor. I also got to see Ashley and Azalia when we stopped for lunch. It was great!

Finished my shirt for my clothing construction class.

 When I measured myself for this shirt, it was going to fit perfectly. By the time I finished it I was three months pregnant and it was a little snug. Needless to say, I've only worn it once.

Finally got serious about putting some pictures and decor up.

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.

Giulia...Robbins

While David was out in the mountains this weekend doing some scouting, I stayed home due to prior commitments ( I was the hairdresser for the ladies of a wedding party. It was super fun! I was working on heads of hair from 8-1 and it got me thinking about what if this was my full-time job? hmm...). Anyway...Saturday night I had dinner over at Rob and Liz's- a home I was at ALL THE TIME growing up. At one point, Liz told the story of how we went to the mall when the highly anticipated fancy sports store opened (Dick's now, I can't remember what it was called then). Back then they always had the indoor rock climbing wall staffed and open to climb (not anymore). Courtney and I had never rock climbed before and of course Liz said yes when we asked if we could climb it. But then we got slammed with paperwork. If you were under 18, you had to have a parent/guardian sign the permit. Uhh....so for that afternoon I was Giulia Robbins. I think we were 8 or 9 years old. Who would have I guessed that this would actually be my name one day??? And as Liz pointed out to Courtney at my Bridal Shower- my name is going to be Robbins for longer than hers has been. Funny how things work out...

Dancin' Away With My Heart

Before we resume pictures from the best week evah! Just did some fb browsing and came across this picture. 

Did a bit of dancin' and movin' and groovin' this weekend. There is always fun to be had when Nessie is around. On the way to P-town on Thursday, the song "Dancin' Away With My Heart", came on the radio, and it was stuck in my head the entire time. Love that Lady Antebellum.

Now, let's not look at me gettin' down, but instead focus our attentions to David.

How did I marry such a handsome piece of man?

Thank you, Nicole, for the picture! ;)

And thank you Breezy for hosting such a great dance party! ;)

Also, wow, I need to get your birthday gift and hump day present to you. And I should probably delete that last sentence because it sounds very strange and awkward.

Wanna know what else I stumbled on while on the fb tonight?

 This old thing!

But more specifically, this:

we've loved each other all along.

I miss you, my bosom friend!

January Wrap-Up numbre due

We did a quick little trip to Panaca. We got to see two of Preston's basketball games.

He's a little baller.

And we also got to spend quite a bit of time with the Tibbitts clan! 

It seems that whenever we are in town, David's best friend- Talen, is not. And this makes the two of them sad. This particular weekend, Talen's younger brother got married, so he and his wife were home for that. We got to hang out at the reception and then we played games, went on an impromptu hike, and grabbed some pizza for dinner on Saturday. It was great! If you know the Tibbitts, then you know that it was a lot of FUN.

Summer 2011 Wrap due

due pronounced doay (two)

Usually the big event that happens after a bridal shower is a wedding. Nothing crazy going on over here; a wedding is exactly what happened. 

A few pictures (that I stole from Courtney's facebook)

after seeing these pics I decided that I definitely need to get me some fringe (bangs). i'm tired of seeing my fivehead.

just 'cause they're so cute. :)

Summer 2011 Wrap uno

Not that this is surprising news, but I wasn't so great at taking photos of all our happenings and goin' ons this summer. Good thing that Felicia and her camera were always ready for most of anything that we did. The next few days will be dedicated to pictures and stories from this summer that have not yet been shared.

Tonight we'll start with Courtney's Berry Fabulous Bridal Shower, June 25th:

Bride to be with her Mom and Sisters (with her "berry fabulous bride" banner, which did not make it in the final crop)

The entry/exit:

we had a raffle entry (with ALL of the money going to the bride for whatever she wanted/needed), address your own Thank You (making the bride's life easier), and game score card pick-up

informative signs: "Help the Bride by filling in a few lines"; and "Keep BERRY CAREFUL track of your score"

And I promise you I did not put that frame around the "Thank you Berry Much" board like that. It must have been shifted to its photographed state and will forever be categorized as that awkwardly framed chalk board at Courtney's bridal shower.  Anyway...the party favor was Strawberry Jam. Delish. 

The Menu:

Berries, fruit salsa and cinna chips, cream-cheesed filled strawberries (thank you Little Lindsey!), all to use to one's chocolate fountain dipping pleasure, muffins, and ham&egg cups- which were divine (and never got pictured). Brianna was captain of the food department and she did a lovely job!!!

Everyone Mixed and Mingled and enjoyed the good food:

and really was that not good food or was that not good food????

and Brianna was cute and pregnant (I just got a text from her saying that she's at the hospital workin' on birthing a baby. YAYYY!) and my Mom was telling some sort of awesome story, I'm sure. 

Games Games Games:

As guests mingled, they checked out this display of some of Courtney's photos and had to guess her age in each photo. If you were within 2months or 2 years you got 1/2 point, if you got the age correct you got 1 point (or something like that, I can't remember exactly how I worked the point system the day of)

pardon my awkwardness. But this is all I have with the Wedding Jeopardy board in the background. Did you miss that, we played a fun, quick round of "Wedding Jeopardy" filled with questions about Courtney, Courtney&Addam, Wedding Potpourrie, and some other category that I can't put my finger on at the moment. Humunuh, I'm doing a great job at this summer recap. Good thing that I made the board and wrote all the categories and questions and can't even remember what I did...Memory, why have you left me?

Prizes for the games: Bath'n' Body Works goodies (lucky that they were having a huge sale at the time). And the grand prize winner for the raffle was a gift card towards a "Spa Day". I PROMISE and cross my heart that the raffle was not rigged in any way. In fact, I couldn't have been more surprised and happy that Brianna won the raffle! too funny. She used the gift card for a well-deserved eight months pregnant facial. :)

We finished with a video of Addam answering questions that were equal parts hilarious and informative. If Courtney guessed his answer correctly, she got to open one of her gifts. If she got it wrong, we took a dollar out of her monies from the raffle jar. (but we gave it all back to her at the end, 'cause we're nice like that)

Overall, we think it turned out great! I wish I had taken photos of all the little details put into the decor that only I would notice. After finishing last semester I had a huge crafty itch that was begging to be scratched, and planning and throwing this shower did the trick. Thanks for being my partner in crime, Brianna (who will be a mother very soon and who will have a perfect lil' baby shower in her honor in a few more weeks- still waiting to know the whole boy/girl thing before I send those invites out) and thank you, Courtney, for being beautiful and wonderful and getting married! 

hmm, never knew that I was the tallest. Yeehaw- I'm the tallest!!!

the end.

...until I remember something else and throw that detail in at random...

nighty night!

oh and...the day before Courtney and now hubby Addam moved back up to Provo, I finally finished their wedding gift:

I think it turned out great!