Recent Happenings

I've been really lagging lately in my blogging, so I apologize to all 2 of you who read our blog :)

This Thanksgiving, we ate with Danny's family and had a wonderful time! The food was so yummy and it was great to spend time with family. Danny and I tried our hand at some pies and they turned out super good! We made pumpkin, banana cream and a pumpkin cheesecake and we also made a very delicious cheese ball which I loved! I am a total slacker and didn't take any pictures. :(

Thanksgiving night, Danny and I decided that we wanted to get a Wii for ourselves for Christmas. Wal-Mart had their Wii's on sale at 10pm on Thanksgiving, so we braved the crowds and got in line for the Wii at about 9:30. As soon as 10:00 hit, the store got so loud as people were pushing their way to the front of displays to get games, movies, toys, etc. But they seemed to have a somewhat organized system so that if you were waiting in line for a game console, you got a ticket and they gave out the consoles in order, rather than just as a free for all. So at 10:01 we got our Wii and then proceeded to wander around to see if anything else was left from the initial stampede. We managed to get a couple of good DVD's for $5, then pushed our way to the other side of the store to get a $10 blender. Then, we decided to check out...about 50 minutes later, we finally got out of the store! It was pretty insane. We probably won't do it again...But it was fun to do at least once! :)

Okay, once we got back from Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to put up our new tree and start decorating for Christmas. We bought a new tree since our place is bigger than it was last year, which is nice because that means we also have more room for other decorations. And I was also excited to pull out my winter Scentsy's :) Here are some pictures of our holiday decor: 

Fun stuff! Excited for Christmas! Well, excited first because school is almost over for this semester   (2 more weeks!) and I will have some time to work on some crafts or something. :)

Halloween Happenings

Yesterday, Danny and I bought some pumpkins so we could carve them and display our artwork for Halloween tomorrow! We had a fun time gutting them (not my fave) and carving them. 

Here's Danny gutting my pumpkin because I'm not good at it :)

Our lovely pumpkins!

Utah State 'A' (Vanessa's)

Green Bay Packers 'G' (Danny's)

When we bought the pumpkins, we forgot to get a light to go in them, but because we live technically 'on-campus', they University doesn't like us using candles...so we had to go to Wal-Mart and see if they had any battery lights. The pickings were slim at the store, but we were able to find battery operated LED lights...that flash different colors. So they look pretty rockin' at night :) We also baked/roasted our pumpkin seeds, which we've never done before. They didn't turn out great, a little over done, but hopefully we'll get it right next year :)

Earlier this week, we went to a pumpkin walk that was in North Logan. It's a pretty big deal up here. Danny read that an estimated 30,000 people visit this pumpkin walk during the 5 days it's open. We went on Monday and had to wait in line for a bit before we even got to see any, but when we did, they were cool!

Angry Bird pumpkins

More Angry Bird pumpkins

Calvin and Hobbes

Then, last week, we went up Logan Canyon to take a look at the pretty leaves!

So pretty! Then, two Saturdays ago, we went to this pumpkin launch, which is also pretty legit. They fire these pumpkins out of these huge barrels and aim them at cars. Then, they lift up the barrels and shoot them as far as they can.

And here is a compilation of all of the fun smashes we saw at the pumpkin launch :)

Birthday and Other Stuff

I turned 22 about 2 weeks ago and it was such a great birthday! My co-workers decorated my desk with balloons, confetti and streamers...Danny and I went to a great meal at the Coppermill Restaurant here in Logan..and we went to this really cool acrobatic show thing for FREE! My employer donated a lot of mulah to the local theater up here, so they get and give away free tickets to all of the events and we got some. It was a lot of fun!

Danny let me go home decor shopping for my birthday and I bought a fun Halloween wreath and some fun fall decorations for the table. He also bought me flowers and some chocolate milk --> my fave.

These flowers lasted a long time and smelled very good :)

We also enjoyed some yummy red velvet cake and Aggie Ice Cream. I was also sung to (thrice!)...It was a great day!

In other news, school has been going well for both Danny and I. Somehow, Danny is managing to survive 19 credits, work, homework and being President of the Food Science Club. Oh, and he's got a new calling: 2nd week Priesthood Instructor. And I'm not sure if I've mentioned what my calling is, but I'm the Compassionate Service Leader, which is fun.

But Danny is very smart and has always gotten good grades. The College of Agriculture here at Utah State University recently recognized his academic success by awarding him an "A" pin. This pin is given to students who have achieved a 4.0 for at least 15 graded credits for two consecutive semesters. Yes, very impressive! 

Here's Danny getting his award from the Dean of the College of Ag.

Way to go, babe! Thanks for being so smart :)

School Again and Other Happenings

Yes, school has started up again. Actually, it started up like 3 weeks ago, and I've been really behind on blogging. 

Danny and I are both taking classes this semester; I'm only taking 9 credits, and they are Psychological Stats, Economic Issues and Natural Disasters. This is my last semester of taking general/depth classes, which will be nice, but I still have like 2 years to go...

Danny is taking 19 credits (yes, you read that right) this semester. We spent a lot of time going over all of the options with his schooling. We basically had 2 options:
1) Finish in one year; this would mean 2 semesters of 19 credits (con), but he would be done in May with a minor in chemistry (pros).
2. Finish in a year and a half; less busy semesters and a double minor in chemistry and biology (pros), but we would have to pay for one more semester of school and he would have to try to find another internship next summer, as he couldn't really start a career job (con).

Seriously, we discussed it for a long time! But we decided that it would be best if he finished in May so he could actually get a job in the food industry. He will be graduating in May with a Bachelors in Food Science and a minor in Chemistry. Danny's also the President of the Food Science Club up here at Utah State, and surprisingly, he is a minority in the major! Food Science is really diverse at USU; there are people from India, China, Honduras, Russia, Malaysia, and Thailand. When we go to club meetings, we are 2 of maybe 4 white people. It's great! :)

In other news, we went to Kamas this past weekend to stay in a cabin owned by Danny's extended family. We spent the weekend there with Danny's sister's family, The Rodemacks and their friends, The Sacketts, who we know. It was a lot of fun! We went fishing on Saturday up at Mirror Lake and had some good success. 

It was a really fun weekend to just relax :)

I always say I'll do better at blogging, but I probably won't, so I apologize if it's another month or 2 before I post again :P

Camping and Other Adventures

A couple of weekends ago, Danny and I went camping up in a canyon north of Logan, in a place called Richmond. The canyon was High Creek Campground. It was so much fun! We really enjoy camping and this is the first time we've been able to go all summer, so we were pretty excited. Here are some fun pictures:

Our lovely tent & campground setup

Danny, after setting up the tent. 

Our friends, Skyler and Chelsea, who came up to join us for hot dogs, smores and our dutch oven dessert

Our cherry black forest soda cake, which was made in the Dutch Oven.

Yeah, the cake looks like a pile of goo, but it was very good and very rich! It went a lot better than our cobbler last year. We hope to get good at the Dutch oven...we will see how that goes.

Last weekend, we went down to the Tooele County Fair.

Check out this quilting...this is really difficult to do, so I had to get a picture.

We also went to the demo derby, which was definitely the best derby we've been to! 

If you haven't ever been to a derby, you should go - it's a great opportunity to people watch! America's finest go to the demo derbys :)

Last night, we went to the Cache County Fair and Rodeo. We hadn't been to a rodeo all summer, so this was great! It was a lot of fun. Our camera didn't get great pictures of the rodeo, so I only included one of a kid mutton bustin'

This was our 3rd attempt at a picture of us together...we weren't very great at it, but this one was the best out of the 3

And we saw the funniest thing at the rodeo. I'm not sure if they do this at every rodeo, but they started off the events by inviting all 8-12 year old kids down into the arena. They then brought out some cow calves with ribbons pinned to them. They lined the kids up and yelled, 'Go!' The kids then chased the calves, who immediately started running. If you got a pink ribbon, it was a $5 prize, and if it was a blue ribbon, it was $10, I think. But seriously, the funniest thing ever - watching all these kids chasing these cows around the arena! :)

Wellsville Hike

So, a couple Saturdays ago, we went hiking with Danny's sister's family, the Rodemacks. They live here in Logan so we see them quite often and they invited us to go on a hike with them in preparation for their hike up Mt. Saint Helen's in a few weeks. We agreed...that was our first mistake. :)

Before setting out on this trip, it was decided that their 18-month old son would come with us by way of a backpack harness thing. Kyle was the first to carry him and we got a mile in and reached Cold Water 'Lake'. This is the only body of water in the Wellsville Mountains, so we had to get a picture.

So, after this point, Danny takes the pack with Cannon and we trudge on for about another mile. At this point, Kyle is unable to keep going due to a brace he has that was hurting him. So he turns around and heads back down and me, Danny and Melissa decide to keep going. We figured we were about halfway there-ish. We had read that it was a little over 3 miles to the Wellsville Ridge and another mile or so to the Wellsville Cone. So we keep going...

and going...

and going...

and we finally make it to the top!

Here is the Cache Valley side:

And here is the Box Elder side:

Very pretty! Yeah...we stopped for lunch after a long while, and we talked about whether we should keep going. I was ready to give up, as was Melissa. Then, these guys were coming down the mountain and they told us that we were about 2/3 of the way to the ridge. At this point, I'm like, 'Are you kidding?! Only 2/3 of the way?? I was expecting at least 7/8...' But Danny convinced us to keep going. At this point, we kind of split up along the trail. Danny trudged on first, basically without stopping. I was about 5 minutes behind him, complaining out loud and yelling at the annoying bugs. And Melissa was another 5-10 minutes behind me. But I'm glad we all made it to the top, it was incredible!

As we were going up, we agreed among ourselves that there was NO WAY that Kyle/Cannon could have made it to the top. These are the steepest mountains in the world we are talking about here...There were steep parts, overgrown parts, rocky parts and non-path parts. On our way down, we decided to take some pictures of a couple of crazy parts of the trail.

Here, we have Melissa, Tarzan-ing it across this part of the trail. It's seriously not flat at all. If you don't use the tree branches, you would definitely fall. 

Here is Danny at the beginning of the overgrown part of the trail. At this point we take like, 5 steps each, I give the camera to Danny and he takes this picture of me (see if you can find me...I can't!)

I promise I'm in there somewhere. But this is what the trail looked like. I actually had to stop on the way up (I was leading) to try to find the trail because I couldn't find it through the overgrown stuff.

Here are a couple more pictures of our hike!

Okay, don't mind the highly unflattering legs, but I had to take a picture of this. I unwisely decided to wear pants that were capri length, thinking that I was smart because I wouldn't get as hot...but alas, I was wrong. I got scratched up pretty good! I am still trying to heal :P

Overall it was really fun and a good experience! I need to get in better shape, though, if Danny wants me to go on another hike ;)