Boo at the Zoo!

Did you know there is a zoo in Idaho Falls? Neither did we until quite recently. Come to find out, every year Tautphaus Zoo hosts a "Boo at the Zoo" night. We wanted to check it out, so we drove down to Idaho Falls and headed to the zoo. It was so fun! Everyone wears costumes and businesses set up booths so kids can go trick-or-treating. There were lights, pumpkins and tons of other decorations. They play music and you can see many of the animals (some aren't out because it's too cold). There were tons of people there and some very fun costumes. We had a great time!

In front of the Tautphaus Park Zoo

Jeff and Bear-Edna: the wicked bear-witch of the west (yes, that is what the sign in front of her said)

The tigers were amazing!

They were so big!

(side note: they had a big blow-up Tigger next to the tiger cage haha)

This is a cool creature whose name we cannot recall ...

This is a really poor quality picture, and you might not be able to tell what it is, but it is -in fact- a lion. Cool!

Katie in front of the extinct animal graveyard. How sad :(

We were walking, turned a corner, and holy cow! we ran into all these amazing pumpkins!

We want to make this a yearly tradition as long as we're here in Rexburg.

Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza!

One year ago, on our second date ever, we carved the amazing pumpkin that won us a gift certificate to Applebees.

This year, we had a two-day pumpkin carving jubilee during which, four ordinary pumpkins were transformed into amazing carved masterpieces. And now the pictures:

Getting ready to begin

No Halloween is complete without a scary movie. Enter: The Great Bear Scare. See that creepy mountain? That's Monster Mountain where all the monsters in the entire world live. Now that's scary!

Two pumpkins down, two more to go

Junie B. Jones. This was Katie's first attempt flying solo at pumkin carving.

All lit up

It was only a matter of time before Jeff carved a Charlie Brown pumpkin ...

... and it turned out amazing

First pumpkin of night two? Pikachu!

Or should I say - Pika-Boo!

And the grand finale ...

The one and only Ash Ketchum-Pokemon Trainer

The carvers and their creations.

St. George and since then!

First off, thank you so much to everyone who was mindful of us these past few weeks. Thanks for all the thoughts, prayers, love, support, putting our names in the temple, phone calls, and well wishes. It was deeply felt and we are so humbled and grateful. Prayers are being answered. We are both doing very well. Katie is getting better and better every day, and Jeff is being blessed in school, work, and his calling.

<< Rewind

The weekend before school started, we decided to take a vacation! So away we drove to St. George. We had such a great time! We saw Aida at the Tuacahn theater, went swimming at the city pool, ate some amazing food at the Brick Oven, climbed on big rocks, played four games of Scrabble, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves :) One thing we didn't do is take a lot of pictures, but we'll post the few we did take.

One night we stayed up late and played three games of Scrabble. We liked them so much we took pictures of all the boards.

Notice all our amazing cool words?

In case you're wondering, Jeff won all three games.

So we climbed this big, red rock and found a beautiful overlook of St. George. (If you look close you can see the temple)

Katie in a cool little rock cave

Jeff on some awesome rocks.

We really had a great time in St. George. It was great to have a ton of fun before the craziness of school started. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Stevenson for letting us stay at your condo!

Bear Lake Photos!

Disclamer: None of these photos are ours. We took them from other family members. Most of them belong to Miss Arika Averett.




Launching off rockets!




Triston pulling the trigger



The whole fam in front of the scenic Bear Lake



Hmm ... not sure exactly what we're doing in this picture ...

Ahh, layin' on the beach holdin' hands. Could life get any better? I submit that it cannot!

Triston and Jaden in the "hot tub" we made :)

Relaxing in the cabin

Playing at Lava Hot Springs

Big smiles for the tons of fun we were having!

The semester in a nut shell

Finals pretty much consumed our entire lives, so now that that's over, we can finally update everyone about what's been going on the past couple months! June 1st was Katie's birthday, so we went out to Red Robin for dinner and then we went bowling (wearing our awesome Hardcore Bowling Mesa High shirts). We had so much fun!

The rest of June and July were mostly devoted to our studies (which we're pretty sure paid off in the end) however, we did get a couple weekends to go down to Utah to see family.

Towards the end of June we went down to Bear Lake with Jeff's family. It was great to see everyone, we really had a fun time.

(because of technical difficulties, we will post the pictures in a separate post)

The weekend of July 4th we went to see Katie's family. We happened to be there for Stake Lagoon Day. It was great! We got there right as Lagoon opened and hit the big rides first thing so there were no lines :) It was a blast!


Jeff on the Bumper cars!

Katie, Forrest, and Charity on the Space Scrambler! (This is an action shot, not posed)

Jeff and Forrest going on the Terror Ride!


Katie (and Jeff's back) on the Train

Katie, Jeff, Charity, Christian, Forrest, and Dad going down Rattle Snake Rapids!
Forrest, Charity, Katie, and Jeff having the funnest day at Lagoon ever :)
Forrest, Katie, and Charity braving the Samurai!
Jeff, Katie, Dad, and Forrest on the Rocket

Forrest and Jeff on the Re-Entry. Peace!

The Fam :)
Ready to conquer Lagoon!

Memorial Day Weekend!

So Memorial Day Weekend was a blast! First we headed down to Bear Lake for the annual "Cabin Clean-Up" party. It was our very first time; very exciting. Us with Grandpa Evan!

That night we slept at Jeff's parent's house. We loved getting to see family and playing together.

Sunday afternoon we went to visit Jeff's father's grave. It was a very peaceful and special experience.

Jeff, Derek, and Kurt

Jeff and Katie


Sunday night, Katie's family had a birthday dinner for her (her birthday's on June 1st). We ate Japanese food and it was fantastic! We also had lime pie for dessert! Yum!

Charity helping make Gyoza

Papa Cooper doing what he likes best :) Christian was helping too.

Katie with her birthday pie. Oh so tasty!

Monday we headed with the Cooper family up into the mountains! We had such a fun time playing baseball, eating great food, taking naps, dealing with bipolar weather and just spending time with family.

The sky on one side of our picnic area ...

... and the sky on the other side. Really, the weather was crazy!

Christian spent the whole time trying to light his fire. It never did go anywhere, but he never gave up!

We were so glad Reese, Tammy, and Daniel could come up too!

I love this picture :)

Driving up there. No we didn't miss our exit and go to Morgan ...

Well, that was our trip! We had such a great time being with family. We are so blessed to be connected to so many wonderful people!

Best Month Ever!

So as you probably know, we got married just over a month ago. Life has been wonderful! We started school on April 20. So with both of us in school and working, life is pretty crazy. Some highlights of this most excellent month include....setting up our house, making ice cream, and the purchase of a vacuum. Let the good times roll!