Fun with the Family in Texas

We had a great time in Texas. Josh & Jacquelyn's wedding was on Saturday, but Nat and I flew down on Wednesday and met my parents and my sisters there to have a little touristy-type fun before the wedding events began. We went down to Galveston and had lunch at an aquarium restaraunt then went down to check out the Gulf of Mexico before the sunset.
Nat and my sister, Rachel, being silly.

The girls: Kari, Shaunie, Rachel, & Kelli. The sun was right in our eyes!

Doesn't our desert from the aquarium restaraunt look cool? It was as good as it was pretty!

Dad & the girls running through the water fountains.

A walk on the beach.

Kari & Rachel Loni

Nat and Kari, both hoping that the wave wouldn't come in and freeze our feet!

Countdown to Vacation

To everyone who has been asking why we haven't posted in a while, I'm sorry. Blogger "updated" and it took me until tonight to figure out how to get in using the new information.

Well, we have one more day of work before we get to go to Texas on vacation!!!! Woohoo!!! My brother, Josh, and his fiance, Jacquelyn, will be getting married in Houston this Saturday. I haven't seen my family (with the wonderful exception of my parents) in over a year, so we're looking forward to giving everyone hugs again. Also, I went on a mission to Houston Texas almost 10 years ago now, and haven't been back since. I'm looking forward to being there again and Nat and I are really looking forward to real Mexican food! We'll have new pictures up in a week or so.

We're Still Here

Sorry there haven't been any new posts in quite a while. We've just been really busy lately and haven't done anything worth taking pictures of. Monday was our 2nd anniversary and that was wonderful! Nat is a perfect angel and I'm so glad to have him. We both had the day off and went out to a nice little restaraunt in Williamsburg. It was very nice. But that's about all that's going on latley.

Deck the Halls

Sorry I'm so behind. We haven't uploaded our Christmas pictures yet, but we did have a wonderful day. Here are a couple of us setting up for Christmas. Hope everyone enjoyed their holidays.

A Fright!

We had a bit of a fright this past week. My sweet Nat came home from work early Wedneday night to surprise me by putting up the Christmas decorations. He opened the front door to find the kitchen window smashed in and the living room in a wreck! We'd been broken into!!! He stepped out quickly in case they were still in the house and called the cops. It turns out that someone smashed our window with a hammer, climbed through, made a mess of the living room, and stole a flashlight and a cable that runs from the TV to Nat's Play Station 2! Then they went down to our bedroom, got one of my white sweaters and wiped their muddy footprints off, folded it back up, and put it back in my stack of sweaters in the closet! Yep, all of that for a flashlight and a cable. And it will cost several hundred dollars to replace the window.

We found out the next day that 2 of our neighbors had been broken into as well, and the only things taken from any of the houses were video game related. Isn't that crazy? And our neighborhood was supposed to be safe. People say they've lived here for 25 years and nothing's ever happened. The police say nothing's really happened before either. Isn't that sad? Now it's a little frightening to come home at night or be home alone at night. We just hope it never happens again! But we are very grateful that Nat didn't come in when they were still in the house and get hurt! So thankful for that!!! And also very grateful that nothing major was stolen or destroyed--other than our sense of security. But, we do have someone comming tomorrow about installing a security system. So, that is our latest news.

Thanksgiving Visitors

My Mom and Dad came to see us for Thanksgiving. They stayed for a week. It was WONDERFUL. They're on a plane back to Idaho now. =( We wish they could've stayed longer, but it was great to have them.
We took them to the Yorktown Battlefield.

We went to Williamsburg and enjoyed the atmosphere along with a great lunch at a little cafe called "The Trellis."




We also enjoyed a walk around the original Jamestown settlement along with a lovely sunset over the James River.

Halloween

We had a great time carving pumpkins for Halloween. Nat taught me a new technique for carving! Who ever would have thought to use a power drill on their jack o' lantern?

Yorktown Days

Last week we celebrated the 225th Battle of Yorktown. You know the battle where the French navy came over and helped us beat Britain? Well, it was a big deal here and great fun too! There were 4 days worth of celebrations. We got the first day off of work so we went up to Yorktown for the parade. They did such a good job. They even had the French marines from Brittany participating. Nat was pretty happy. He got to sing his national anthem as well as speak French for an hour or two with one of the soldiers he made friends with.

There were replicas of old ships and plenty of FREE fun! One night they had live bands and dancing down by the ocean, so we went up for that too. That weekend my cousin Shonda came from San Francisco for a visit, so she got to join us for some of the festivities. Enjoy the pictures!

Keeping Busy

We've just been keeping busy here in Virginia and enjoying every minute of it. We recently had our first visitor at our new home! So exciting. My friend Shelley came out and spent 3 days with us. She's awesome.

Nat's been busy as ever at Fed Ex, and the library job gets more and more involved for me every day, but I love it! Our house has been coming along too. Nat has successfully removed almost all of the ugly green from the kitchen cabinets, now we can move on to refinishing them. Hooray! The yard is also looking better all the time.

We've also taken a membership out at the YMCA, and Nat and I have been going swimming together almost every day. It's been fun.

Itching

Hi everyone. Not much has been going on around here lately to take pictures of. I started my new job at the library, and so far it's been great. Nat and I have also continued working on cleaning up the debris in the yard. Other than that I've just been itching to get removing the wallpaper in our bedroom. Isn't the red with the gaudy flowers just stunning? (Seriously, I don't know what the previous owners were thinking with the colors they had in any of the rooms!) But, I'm trying to be patient while Nat finishes refinishing the kitchen cabinets, so they will no longer be ugly and green.

The Happy Librarian

I got hired as the programs director for 2 libraries in York County! I showed up for an interview for a Saturday only position and got offered this little pearl of a job instead. What an opportunity to design the library programs in historic York County and during all of the 400 year anniversary celebrations! I'm totally loving it so far. This is me on my first day as a York County Librarian.

Ernesto

Well, we feel very fortunate to say that we survived our first tropical storm here in Virginia in good shape! It was quite an experience with hard winds and tons of rain. We lost power for 24 hours and the phone/internet lines were down for a whole week! We were very blessed that we were safe and that our house wasn't flooded like many of the homes around us. We are also happy that we had the 2, 70 foot trees cut down a few weeks ago. It was just in time! We did end up with 4 smaller trees that were blown down, 1 broke our fence, and another missed our bedroom window by just a little bit. Nat took me to work with him during the storm so I didn't have to sit alone in a dark house with the storm going on all around. (Of course, with Fed Ex a tiny thing like a tropical storm doesn't keep business from proceding as usual.) Several people have requested pictures, so here's what we have. We didn't get any pictures till after the water had receded, but this is the "damage."

Meyer Acres

Welcome to Meyer Acres! Okay, Meyer's 1/3 acre. We had 2 very large trees cut down in preparation for the Fall's tropical storms. Our yard looked like a forest rather than somebody's yard! We've been working very hard to get it cleaned up. It's looking much better now. Here are some work shots just for fun.

Vacation

We're on vacation! Nat has the week off from Fed Ex. A break he truly needed. He loves his job, but a vacation is always rejuvenating. We decided to spend a few days in Washington D.C. We haven't posted pictures for a while, so we posted a few for you to enjoy. (I can't understand why, but it posted all of our pictures and commentary in reverse order and I can't seem to fix it! I'm afraid everything will have to be viewed backwards. Sorry!)

Welcome Home Surprise

This is Virginia and the trees grow tall, tall, tall. This is Hampton, Virginia 10 minutes from the Atlantic ocean, and some times the hurricane winds come and blow the trees down. We had 2 enormous pine trees in our front and side yards that we decided to have cut down before a tropical storm came and took them down for us. However; we thought the tree cutters were coming Friday morning, we arrived home Thursday night and the job was already done. Surprise! Now we just have to get to work removing the remaining debris before the weight of the logs kills the grass. This is the view from our front door. We are so happy to have the huge trees down!

Mt. Vernon

Nat is so kind, even after 2 days of touring and walking till our feet and legs ached, he was still willing to give me 2 more hours to visit George Washington's old plantation, Mt. Vernon. It was gorgeous. The Washington's had quite the view from their back porch.

Smithsonian Museums

One of the best things about Washington D.C. is the Smithsonian museums. And to make things even better, entrance is FREE!!!! We vistied the Air and Space Museum, as well as the Museum of American History where one of the original stones to the Nauvoo temple is displayed in the entry way, and where "Old Glory" the first ever United States flag is also on display. They even have the puppet from "Mickey and the Bean Stalk" (an old Disney movie. Brett and Sam, we took this picture for you!) The Smithsonian even has a free zoo! It was fantastic.

The Monuments

We arrived in D.C. on August 15th, the 11th anniversary of Nat's arrival in the United States, and this was Nat's first visit to this nation's capitol. So, I dragged him around to all of the monument's and my favorite sites. It was great! (Dragging really isn't the right word, he enjoyed himself too!)

A Night With Friends

Some friends of ours from Utah moved to Alexandria, Virginia a few months before we moved to Hampton. Alexandria is only about 15 minutes south of D.C., so Nat and I were able to spend an evening visiting with them. It was great to see them again. For those of you who are also friends with the Chemizov Family we have posted a few pictures for you to see.

Temple Trip

Our first day of vacation Nat and I decided to spend at the beautiful Washington D.C. Temple. It was a very nice way to start things off and focus on spiritual things and have a break from the every day routine. For those of our friends unfamiliar with exactly what a temple is, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints it is a special house of worship that is a little different from the Sunday chapel. It is where we get married and also go to reflect on Jesus Christ and remember and learn more of what we need to do to better ourselves and become true Christians. We really had a good experience.

Just Routine, But Good

Nat and I have just been keeping busy with the routine. There hasn't been much to take pictures of lately, but things are going well. Nat's been working hard at Fed Ex and there has been a little extra stress lately as several of the station employees have quit, so they're a little short-handed at the moment, but Nat's still doing great. I've just been plugging along on my medical transcription course. It's taking longer than we expected, but it looks like I should be done in 6-7 weeks! Hooray! And lately we have been looking into the possibility of me working at a library again. My prospects are looking favorable, so we're pretty excited. And in a week or so we've got a vacation planned to Washington D.C. which we are really looking forward to! We'll have more pictures to post when we get back. So, until then, we love you and miss you all and hope everyone is doing great. Keep in touch!