Apples Down Memory Lane

When we went to visit my parents in Idaho in November, my parents enticed us into using our skills to make more food storage for us. They showed us their collection of apples and we started on the applesauce and later some apple juice. (We stole all the pictures from my parents since we were not smart enough to bring our camera with us that weekend).
We used the entire blue bucket of apples to make 10 gallons of apple juice.

We made 40 quarts of applesauce that was absolutely delicious!!!
Here we are using the apple press that my dad made to make us some apple juice. We were very fascinated at the process or making apple juice. That was a first for us and it is the best apple juice we've ever had. We did not have to add any sugar, just a little cinnamon for added flavor. Gotta love home grown apples!



After all of our hard work, Jeph and I treated ourselves to a night out. We took my brother to meet up with his wife to watch her sister play basketball at Minico High School. We walked around to see all the changes that they've made since I graduated almost 9 years ago. Some things were very different while others definitely have not changed. We watched the last 10 minutes of the game and it was just so strange to look around and see the banner with the fight song (provided by the class of 2001). The gym seems so much smaller than I remember as well and it was fun to see some old teachers in the crowd. Oh the good ole days at Minico High School!

WE MUST PROTECT THIS HOUSE!

Since I went to BYU-Idaho where there were no college teams, I sometimes feel like I missed out on that one small part of college life. So since I moved to a town where the college team is a big deal, I thought it would be fun to go to a game. Jeph found us some free tickets to the game in November. We were freezing but we had a great time and are glad we went.
U-T-A-H Fight! Fight! Fight!

Missing:

Small cute, brown and tan colored puppy. We are very concerned because we woke up and our little puppy had disappeared. We could not find our little, fluffy, brown pup anywhere.



In his place we found this white/silver puppy. We would love to have our puppy back so if any of you have lost yours and have ours, we are willing to trade back.
However, that face does look oddly familiar.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year with the Simmons family. We enjoyed watching the new Christmas Carol movie and then dinner at Mimi's Cafe with Mike and Lynn and Kim and Mike. The other siblings celebrated with their families or live out of state so the big dinner wasn't until the following day. We started the day after Thanksgiving with a little 5k on Brighton High's track. Then ate lots of food. Jeph borrowed a frier and fried his first turkey ever and I was put in charge of candied yams. They were both delish! (Pictures of Jeph's first Turkey fry to come)

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We both have jobs that are flexible and work with us as needed. We are both in school and are doing well in our classes. We have two cars which makes life much easier. We are buying our condo. We have enjoyed vacationing to Georgia, Tennessee, Montana, Nevada, and many weekend trips to our own private Idaho. We have a new little puppy, whom we love much more than we expected to. We have two very wonderful families. We still enjoy being together after two whole years of marriage. We are most thankful that God loves us and blesses us as we make Him a bigger part of our lives.

The Stache

As you all may recall, I have a very handsome husband. However, a friend once informed my handsome husband that he though Jeph could grow a nice mustache. Well, Jeph decided to see if he was right and he started growing the stache.
After several weeks, Jeph was successful, and in fact was able to grow a very full stache but he looked like a creeper. With compliments from some people and the opposite from others, Jeph decided to keep it until Halloween for his costume at work. But when Halloween was over, the stache needed to come off.
Jeph was experimenting with different stache do's and eventually decided that the one he started with was the best.
So after weeks of uncertainty about where my handsome husband had gone, we finally found him again and are certain that I do have a handsome husband and not a creeper or molester of any sort. Thank goodness for that!

David Gray & Lisa Hannigan

We both love David Gray's music so when we heard he was coming to town we were first in line to buy tickets. The concert was phenomenal, David Gray is brilliant, and we cannot wait until he comes to town again!
!
To makes things better, the show was started with an opening act from Lisa Hannigan. We'd actually heard of Lisa before because she sings with Damian Rice on his album O. We love that album a lot so we were looking forward to hearing what she would do on her own. She was pretty good (I think Jeph mentioned something about a new music crush).

Our special moment

As long as Venita and I have been together, we have worked to make our two worlds come together and make our two lives become one. As with any couple, we each try to accept each others' interests and make them our own.
Last night we were watching the CMA awards on television. As I was watching and enjoying the music performances, Venita noted to me, "If I would have told you 3 years ago that we'd be sitting on the couch watching the CMA's and you would actually enjoy it, you would have said, 'you're crazy.'" I chuckled at the truthfulness of that statement and my rebuttal was, "well if I would have told you 3 years ago that we would be sitting here 4 weeks away from your 6th Dave Matthews concert, you would have said, 'you're crazy.'"
To make our special moment even more perfect, a few minutes later this was what we saw on tv:












Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews singing "I'm Alive".
Thanks to the CMAs for an entertaining evening filled with great music, good laughs and helping us see how far we have come.

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween we were asked if we were going to dress our puppy in costume to celebrate. We decided Ca6aka should keep his natural dog outfit and go as Toto. $5 at Savers bought Jeph the perfect costume but I was not so lucky. But I did luck out that Lynn volunteered to make up a lovely Dorothy dress. It was perfect and we made quite the Scarecrow, Dorothy, and Toto!

We stopped by to show the family the costumes and get some pictures then off trick-or-treating.


Okay, we didn't really go trick-or-treating but we did make some treats. Jeph had heard about this great Halloween treat idea to get sugar cookie dough and make cookies shaped like fingers and have them coming out of a pudding/oreo graveyard.

The fingers looked fantastic before we baked them, but unfortunately, they morphed into cookies that looked more like giant toes with small infected toe nails than fingers. So we turned them into tombstones instead.

M. Bizzle was convinced that Jeph had really taken the time to write personalized messages on the tombstones.

The Bizzles always get into the Halloween spirit. This year, they celebrated Halloween a few days earlier and went as Cavepeople and for Halloween they threw on the ol' trusty mask and witch hat/hair.
I think these next pictures speak for themselves! Classic Bizzle town!
To wrap up our festivities, we ended the night with a little scary movie Wait Until Dark, highly recommended by my mom! It was a fantastic film that we would definitely recommend when you're in the mood for a classic intense movie! (I only screamed once.)

Happy Three Months to Our Baby!

Our little Co6a4ka turned 3 months in October! It seems like he was just born yesterday and we were bringing him home for the first time (tear). Anyway, to celebrate we did nothing and took pictures to document this monumental moment. We are so proud of our little mutt and just want to share all the things he can do these days and how he just keeps surpassing all his cousins in reaching his milestones. Our growing boy is up to 5 lbs 8 oz and 17 inches when he stands on his hind legs and 7 inches when on all 4. Co6aka went from army crawling straight to walking in 7 days. We are still working on going to the bathroom outside, but he only has about 2 accidents a week, which is pretty amazing considering his age. A majority of his accidents seem to be because he is still wetting the bed. (We found that out when I was holding our sweet sleeping boy and he suddenly woke up, and we were both soaking wet. haha. what a sweetheart!!!) Co6aka has been on solids since he was 5 weeks old and is an excellent little eater. Our little pup loves playing well with all the other dogs in the condo complex and thinks he is just as big as the big dogs. He goes right up to those German Shepherds and Bulldogs and gets right up in their faces. It is so comforting when the owners say, "finally, someone who is not afraid of our dogs!" Co6aka is very smart and can even sit on command (sometimes he has to hear the word 10 times, but he eventually gets it for a bacon treat)!
I have to admit, our little guy sure loves his mama. He is always up for biting my pants and being dragged across the floor, taking my shoes and socks to chew on, sitting on my lap/laptop when I am using the computer, eating my hair, and occasionally snuggling up with me to take a nap. We sure are lucky to have the little guy and just love him to death! Anyway, here are some pictures I'm sure ya'll will enjoy of our little ray of sunshine!!

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First Bath! Who'd of thought we have a little rat under all that fur?!

Happy Birthday Celebration for Venita

Jeph bought us tickets to Colbie Cailat for my birthday! It was very thoughtful of him! Then I realized that Howie Day was opening and Jeph has wanted to see him live for about 10 years. Luckily, I also enjoy me some Howie Day and we had a grand time on the front row at The Venue! Unfortnately, we forgot our camera and only had our phones so the pictures aren't the best but it's all we have.