Our Christmas Story

So I thought I'd post a short entry about our Christmas this year. Adam had to work for a few hours on Christmas Day, so we ended up sticking around here for the holidays. On Christmas Eve we both got off work around 1p.m., so we were able to enjoy some time together during daylight hours. That evening, we had a fun dinner and then went to see some Christmas lights (although I had to drag Adam into the car to come with me - he's not a fan of Christmas lights-observing like I am). I know he secretly enjoyed listening to me talk about what kinds of lights were my most/least favorites. Although, Heidi seemed more interested in the lights than he did. That evening, we decided to go ahead and open our gifts since Adam was going to have to work the next morning. Here's Adam with "the only thing I want for Christmas for the rest of my life:" I love the Willow Tree angels, and Adam's mom and my mom both got me one! I was very pleased indeed:One of my gifts from my dad certainly came in handy too:Christmas Day was very relaxing and enjoyable. We had some very delicious food together at the dining facility on base after Adam was done greeting the distinguished visitors that served lunch. It really was very good - I was impressed. It even made the front page of the Rapid City Journal and was covered by the news! That evening we had another yummy meal with some friends from church. All in all, we had a low-key, enjoyable holiday full of good food and good friends.

I'm so thankful that Heavenly Father sent his son to this earth so that we can return to live with Him again someday. The gifts and food are nice, but they are only reminders of how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have given us. I hope that we can keep the spirit of Christ in our hearts all year.

I have to end with a video of Heidi playing with one of her Christmas presents. She's so talented...

Merry Christmas!

4 Years and Counting!

On December 18th, Adam and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary! It's hard to believe that it's been 4 years already. We did what we usually do for anniversaries, and instead of getting each other gifts, we went somewhere fun together. This year we went to Hot Springs, SD, which is about an hour south of Rapid City. Our neighbor Lani checked on Heidi for us for the two days we were gone. Thank you, Lani! We decided on Hot Springs because a few weeks ago, Adam won a $50 Shell gas card playing McDonald's Monopoly online. Come to find out, the closest Shell station was in Hot Springs! Well, my car doesn't use $50 in gas, so luckily for us, the gas card was good for anything in the convenience store too! You'd be surprised how much fun it was to go on a shopping spree at the Shell gas station. haha. That's where we ended up eating lunch once we arrived in Hot Springs last Thursday. Here is a picture of us with some of our goods: We took a little tour of the town (very little tour - considering it's a very little town) after relaxing at the hotel for a little bit. It was really cool to see the naturally warm water flowing through Hot Springs (although it was very cold outside!).

That evening we went to Evan's Plunge, an indoor waterpark made from a natural Hot Spring. The water is always 87 degrees, and the bottom of the pool is covered in smooth stones. It was a pretty cool place. They have an outdoor area too, but it was closed (for obvious reasons).

My favorite part of Evan's Plunge was the fast slide. It was really short, but fun. That evening we had a yummy dinner of chicken-fried steak at a local restaurant. I told the host/owner/server that it was our anniversary, to which he responded that it was he and his wife's anniversary too! He was so nice and gave us a complimentary slice of raspberry cheesecake for dessert : ) YUM! The next day we visited the Mammoth Site in town. The Mammoth Site is the world's largest mammoth research facility. It is also an active dig site for mammoth bones. Thousands of years ago, mammoths kept coming to drink from a hot spring and would fall in. Because the rock around the water was so slick, they wouldn't be able to get out of the hot spring and would die. As a result, the small area of land, which was once this hot spring, is full of mammoth remains, along with some other animal bones. I found it quite humorous that so far, all of the mammoths they have found have all been boys - mostly adolescent boys. That's all I'll say about that...

One of the advantages of being married in the winter is that it's the off-season for most touristy places, so we get to celebrate our anniversaries without the big crowds around. We even got our own private tour of the mammoth site! When we went downstairs to check out the laboratory through the glass windows, one of the workers came out and offered to show us around inside! I felt like I was behind the scenes on Reading Rainbow!

After the Mammoth Site Museum, we went to Wind Cave National Park, which was on our way home. It was pretty exciting to see a bunch of prairie dogs everywhere! I was most excited to see a wild coyote:

We toured part of the Wind Cave, which is the 4th largest mapped cave in the world. However, the tour guide told us that it is estimated that only 5% of the cave has been mapped! Here are some of my favorite pictures inside the cave, including calcite crystals, boxwork, and the temple room. And again, we got our own private tour of the cave. Woot woot!

The last picture is of the natural entrance to the cave. It's barely large enough to squeeze yourself through, so there's an elevator about 300 feet away to take you down into the cave. The cave was discovered by Native Americans who noticed that the hole had wind blowing out of it. It's interesting because the cave "breathes." Sometimes air is being sucked into the hole, and other times wind blows out of it (depending on air pressure).

We drove through the rest of the park and up through Custer State Park on our way home. In Custer State Park we came across some wild donkeys on the side of the road. There were about 8 of them! They got me in the Christmas spirit. haha.

We ended up having a very fun anniversary with some sweet, special moments shared. I love being married to my best friend!

Our Black Hills Tree

One of the many perks of living in South Dakota (cough::sarcasm::cough) is that for a $10 permit, you can drive into the Black Hills National Forest and chop down your own Christmas tree! The majority of the trees are Ponderosa Pines with really long needles, but Adam and I were determined to find a Spruce tree (with short needles). The only Spruce trees we could find weren't very dense, but I guess it's all part of the experience. Adam made a psycho killer face while he was walking with the saw, so I had to capture the moment.

We also found Heidi a little tree just her size. She was a champ in her new, warm winter coat. You may think I'm silly for buying my dog a coat, but she was shivering - even with the coat! We finally decided on our tree when we realized we weren't going to find anything full and more traditional looking. I really like our forest tree though, and it's really tall! It was nice to throw it in the back of Adam's truck and not worry about it too, considering we passed quite a few people who had to tie their trees to their cars.

I was excited to decorate the tree and put up all of my other Christmas decorations today. The picture doesn't quite do my little tree justice though. It actually looks pretty nice. It smells so good too. Our Christmas tree in Florida ended up being a hybrid tree with strange needles that didn't fall off. It didn't smell good. It didn't smell at all, actually. But it's been fun to have different kinds of Christmas trees in the different places we've lived.

Later this evening, we went to the Festival of Lights parade downtown. It was okay, but I was disappointed in the lack of candy thrown from the floats. No candy whatsoever. What kind of parade doesn't involve candy-throwing? I know I'm almost 24, but I still enjoy a good piece of hard-earned parade candy. Florida parades were strange because no matter what the season or parade, you could always count on catching some Mardi Gras beads. Not just a few beads either - we're talking handfuls and handfuls of beads. I always thought it was weird, but I guess you appreciate things like that more when you leave a parade empty handed... Other than that, the parade was okay. Some of the floats were pretty nice, and we were sure to bundle up! All in all, a very Christmas-y, fun day!

My Christmas Present

So my wonderful husband bought me a digital piano on Saturday as my Christmas present this year (which will probably count as my birthday present and next year's Christmas present also). I've played the piano since I was 7, but it's been hard for me to not have easy access to a piano for 5+ years. I love to play the piano (not that I always wanted to practice as a child). I'm so glad my mom told me that I could quit my lessons when I "didn't want to quit any more." Thanks for being a stickler, mom!

I must say that I've had some very spiritual experiences playing the piano, mostly when I've been playing alone. I'm so thankful for the gift of music in my life. I'm also thankful that Adam decided that it was time for me to finally have a piano when he saw me sitting in Sacrament Meeting with my sheet music, going through the notes in my head - for fun.

Adam insisted on video-taping my first notes played on my new piano, so though the song is generic and not so impressive, here it is - sideways and all:

Down the Drain

So...remember when our toilet flooded? Well, they tried to fix the toilet that same night with no avail. Then when they came back to pick up the carpet fans, they tried to fix it again, with no luck. So they finally came to replace our toilet yesterday, and said they were going to break apart the old one to find out what was wrong with it. So Adam got a call today saying that we are going to have to pay $190 for our new toilet. Apparently, housing maintenance found something in the toilet that was causing all of the problems: a dog toy. Don't ask me how it got there, but Adam was able to verify that the purple, rubber horseshoe was indeed our dog's toy. I was wondering where that thing went...

Heidi's punishment was to model by the new toilet with her "I'm sorry, mommy" face. I think she's forgiven now.

Snow Day!

We received word that a big snow storm was coming through starting around 5p.m. last night. Well, it snowed and snowed all night, and the wind is so bad in South Dakota, that it was quite noisy. We awoke to a couple of phone calls stating that Adam and I both had snow days today!!! Hooray! Unfortunately, we can't go anywhere because we're pretty much trapped by the snow drifts. It looks like we might be getting out soon though, thanks to our little dog and a little thing she likes to call "determination."


Heidi finally dug us free, with the help of Adam and some kind ward members (thanks Bro. Shirley and Bro. Rocknak!) The snow in front of our house is a combination of a giant bush, snow drifts, and shoveled snow. Heidi had a grand old time hopping around in it like a bunny. Oh, and Adam, I don't think we're in Florida anymore!

A Weekend of Excess

So I thought I'd blog about my weekend last week, because it was just that horrible. It's overwith now, so I can semi-laugh about it. First of all, our toilet flooded the house for 4 hours on Friday while Adam and I were at work. Adam said he came home and it sounded like a thunderstorm downstairs in the unfinished part of the basement (our overflowing toilet was upstairs). The water flooded the hallway and surrounding parts of the bathroom, and leaked through the ceiling/vents into the basement below. The picture with the washer/dryer shows the part of the basement that got soaked about an hour after it happened. A lot of the water had already dried up by then. There was about an inch of water there before, and it splashed 2 feet high up onto the walls. Adam soaked up tons of water with towels, and our neighbor lent us their shopvac to suck up the rest.

Heidi was scared of the vacuum though, and we thought it was hilarious. I know...we're so mean.

Finally, housing maintenance showed up and started to dry out the floor. They had to rip up the carpet and put fans underneath in 4 different places.

They're actually putting the carpet back in place as I'm typing this, and hopefully he'll fix the toilet this time.

So...the very next day (Saturday), I went to work at the bank. After we closed the bank around noon (I love banker's hours), I got into my car to leave. However, my battery was dead. I had left my headlights on. I couldn't get a hold of Adam for 30 minutes. Thankfully, my neighbor came and gave me a ride home. Other small things happened too that made this weekend a bad one, but I guess I should focus on the good things... right?

Lover's Leap

Yesterday, Adam and I decided to take a hike (literally). We have a 2008 pass to Custer State Park, so we grabbed Heidi and chose a trail once we reached the park. The lady at the entrance suggested a hike to a cliff called Lover's Leap. Legend states that two Native American lovers jumped off the cliff, lending its name. Creepy...

Heidi does this thing where she puts one paw up in the air. I assume she's in deep thought when she does it, so I thought I post a picture of it.

Not long after starting the 3 mile loop, we came across a buffalo! For those of you who are unaware, buffalo are very dangerous and unpredictable. They can run up to 30 mph too. They tend to charge at people when they feel threatened. I'm pretty sure my heart jumped out of my chest when Adam spotted it up ahead, because we were too close for comfort. It was heading in our direction down the trail we were on. I suggested that we slowly make our way up the hill off the trail so that the buffalo could come down the way it wanted to, and we could continue once the buffalo passed. Heidi decided to growl at it, which made us even more nervous. She thinks she's so tough. These pictures are of us up on the hill waiting for the buffalo to make its way down the trail. Apparently it prefers marked pathways too...

I was so nervous after our buffalo encounter that I couldn't help but jump at every sound in the woods. Plus, I read the brochure before we started, which said that mountain lions are native to the area. Trust me...I knew exactly what to do if one of THOSE things crossed my path. Adam carried some small rocks in his pocket just in case. It made ME feel better anyway...

After another buffalo encounter, we finally made it to Lover's Leap. It did not disappoint! It was REALLY high. My legs were actually shaking.

We felt like two crazy lovers up there all by ourselves. haha. Heidi felt like the queen of the mountain. Well...that was MY interpretation of her facial expressions. lol. We had to kind of rush through the rest of the loop because it was getting dark. Custer State Park is mostly made up of pine trees, but there were a few really pretty trees that had changed colors. It ended up being a very fun hike...considering we weren't trampled or mauled.