Free Canvas Portrait

My friend, LeaDawn, started a blog to help people find out where some of the best deals are. This has been a great site. I've already ordered a free photo album for my parents and just ordered a free canvas portrait. She also has many other wonderful deals on her site. You should check it out.

The canvas portrait is from canvas people. The 8x10 is free to first-time users or you can put $55 towards a bigger portrait.

It's a perfect Christmas present that you only have to pay for shipping and handling (which is about 14.95). But if you want to find out how you can save more on the canvas (making it only cost $2.95-$8.95, go to The Coupon Basics Web site for more information on how to do that. I'm really excited to get mine in the mail soon!

Bride's Guide

I am officially done working on the BYU-Idaho's Bride's Guide magazine!! My job this semester is the editor in chief for the Bride's Guide magazine and the Winter Outdoor magazine. When I received this position, I have to admit, it was a little intimidating. I have never written for a real magazine or designed a layout for one. And to add to the stress, none of the editors who worked on the magazine in the past were on Scroll to help me along the way. I am grateful to Bre for coming in and giving me advice though.

I assigned a few classes to write some articles for the magazine, expecting to receive at least 20 articles... I got about 10. I enlisted in the help of many Scroll editors and friends and family. It's funny to see all the familiar faces within the magazine. Thanks to Kimberly, Bre, Brian Johnson and Carol Rhees for stepping up and writing their personal stories. And thanks to LeaDawn for sending me pictures in the last minute.

But, after working on the magazine for 70 hours in the past week, I am pleased to announce that we sent the 48 page magazine to the printers yesterday. It doesn't come out until November 12, so we'll all have to wait to see the final product but here is a sneak peek of what the front and back cover look like. I hope you like it.

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile

Autumn is David's favorite season. He loves the feeling of the leaves crackling under his feet and the wonderful colors all around. Unfortunately, we had our first snowfall last night and soon the whole world will be under a blanket of snow. But before the snow came, David and I were able to get a few pictures of Rexburg in the fall.

Can you find David?

We set the timer on the camera so that we could both be in the pictures. We were both ready to take our last picture and when the timer went off I threw the leaves in the air, like we were supposed to, and David threw his in my face. I was not very pleased.

This is not from the leaves David threw in my face. But I did get hit in the head with a soccer ball during one of our tournament games. I couldn't really see out of my eye for a while but I finished the game and we won. Below is a closer look at my eye.

It's been way too long

It has been so long since I posted. I could say that things have been really busy, but in reality, I just haven't gotten around to posting. But we have been doing some fun things. David took me fishing for the first time in my life. We went with his family during Labor Day Weekend to Teapot Lake. That is where David's dad took David's mom on their first date. So they have a tradition of going fishing at Teapot Lake every Labor Day Weekend. It was a lot of fun.

David's parents own a canoe so we took it out in the lake. We didn't catch any fish out there but it was still fun.
And... I caught my first fish!! I was so excited! It was pretty small but it was mine. David's mom says I'm a natural at casting my line. However, I still refuse to gut the little fishies. Afterwards, we took the fish home and cooked them on the grill. I didn't care much for the bones I kept finding in my teeth. It'll take a while to become an expert fish eater.
Also this summer, David's sisters came to Rexburg for a visit. It was so fun to have them come and be able to show them the sites. David misses his family a lot. We took them to Mesa Falls. They really enjoyed this beautiful site.
We also took them to the sand dunes to play soccer and throw frisbees. In this picture, they buried us in the sand up to our waists (we are standing straight up). Then they gave us mermaid fins. It was fun.
Last night, I went to my first BYU football game with David and his family. They are avid BYU football fans so it was fun to watch it with them. David is trying to convert me to BYU football. So far I've watched all of the games except the Florida State game - which I'm OK with since they lost that game.

So that's what we've been up to lately. We're both going to school right now. David has a job helping build the new chapel by the temple and I'm still working for the Scroll. We're taking really hard classes this semester. We're taking archery and racquetball together. It's tough, but we enjoy it.

Summer Fun

We had a lot of fun this summer... so much fun that you may wonder if we had time to do schoolwork. We were gone at least every other weekend for family get-togethers. But we did really good with school. David is actually getting a scholarship because of his amazing grades! I'm so proud of him.



One of our many parties included a family reunion. All of my siblings got together for the first time in a year and a half.


This is a picture of my parents and all my siblings - in order from oldest to youngest.

This is my niece, Ellie. She loved Spencer and Becca's dog.

We were in charge of the slip n' slide kickball. The kids had to slide on the slip n' slide to home plate. It was a lot of fun.

These pictures aren't from the actual game. The kids played on the slip n' slide long after the game was over.

We also went to my cousin's to play on their waterslide. It was a lot of fun. They built a real waterslide in their backyard. I had to show David this amazing place. Needless to say, he loved it. He went nearly non-stop from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. David refused to leave until they turned off the water. David and Hayden were the last ones to go down the slide.

We saw a lot of this throughout the day. The uphill climb was a killer but it was fun.

David and Hayden lost their mat halfway down the slide and David scraped his knees really bad.

We went one after the other one time and I totally caught up to David. Here I am about to run him over.

I went down with Kami and it was fun. So we went down again and completely wiped out. Not cool. But all in all, it was a really fun summer. We had a great time and are excited to see what the rest of the year has in store for us.

My faith in humanity has been reaffirmed.

I'm taking a photography class and so whenever I see something beautiful I just have to take a picture. Well, we were driving in the car and I caught a site of the temple with amazing clouds behind it. I just had to take a picture and convinced my husband to drive up to the temple so I could do so. I couldn't get the right angle so I grabbed a few of our gift cards from our wedding and used them to angle my camera right. During this time, I really had to go to the bathroom and I was dancing all over the place. But I was not going to miss out on this opportunity just because I really had to go. So I got my pictures and climbed in the car and we raced home so I could go.

Well, the next day I was looking at where we keep our gift cards and I only saw half of them there. My first thought was about how I used them for my pictures. No, I thought, I'm not that daft to leave the gift cards on the top of the car. Well, we searched and we searched and came up with nothing. Our only options were that I had left them on top of the car and someone picked them up (for we drove passed the temple and made sure they weren't still there) or I put them somewhere and they'd show up eventually. Either way, we felt the loss greatly because we counted a couple hundred dollars in profit lost.

Today my dad called me and said that he saw on the news that the Rexburg police report that a girl found a few gift cards and gave them to the police. We called the police station as soon as possible and verified that they were our gift cards. David went and picked them up and I'm happy to say that they are back in our lives.

The media is always portraying how humanity is failing and how the world is falling apart. Little acts of kindness and honesty, though they are not given much publicity or hype,do more to give me a good perspective of how the world really is than all the news programs on TV.

I'm so grateful for that young girl who was honest enough to turn the gift cards in to the police. I'm grateful for good people who are always striving to do what is right. And I am gratefulfor my reaffirming faith in humanity.

What you shouldn't tell your parents...

Zach on the roof and Justyn jumping from the swing.



Devin had perfect form and David jumps over Zach.



Double act (Zach and Justyn) and David – the ring leader.