Christmas Decorations

We got our Christmas tree up and decorated. It was a lot of fun. Last year after Christmas we found some new decorations that we both really liked. It was a lot of fun to use the decorations that we had both picked out. I also really like the nativity scene (on the table) that my mom gave us. It was a perfect day for Christmas decorating too because it snowed most of the day and into the night. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Deer Friends

These deer have been hanging out in our back yard. It's been fun to be able to look out and see them. I don't know what they will do now that there is snow.

Pumpkin Pictures

This year we decided to try sculpting pumpkins instead of carving them. We saw it on the food network. Obviously we are still learning, but I think Tyler's (the skeleton) turned out really cool, especially in the dark.

November Update

I apologize that I have not been keeping my blog up to date. The last few months have been busy and exciting. It is amazing how quickly the time has gone.

Most of our time and energy has been taken up by school. Tyler is working on finishing his degree in Spanish by this April. Between the upper division Spanish classes and the optometry pre-requisites he has had a difficult semester, but he has worked hard and stayed on top of everything. He is hoping to go to optometry school when he finishes. He has applied now and a couple of the schools have let him know that they are considering him, but he has not had any offers yet. So, we still do not really know where we will be next year.

I have been absorbed in getting my thesis finished. For a while, I was not sure if I would make the deadlines for graduation this semester, but things miraculously worked out. I just turned in my final draft to the library to get it bound, and I am all approved for graduation in December, so now I just have to finish my finals for my last two classes and I will be set. I am also going to try to get my project published in a scientific journal which will mean more revisions, but I can do that after I graduate.

We were in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving and had a really great time. One of Tyler’s friends took us to Lake Mead for some winter water skiing. Tyler really enjoys knee boarding, and he has only gone once since we got married so he was excited. It was pretty chilly even though it was Las Vegas. The water was about 60 degrees and the air was probably about the same but with the wind chill it was colder. Luckily we were wearing wet suits and Kimin (Tyler’s friend) had a hot water shower on his boat so that we could thaw out after we got in the water. Yes, I did try it out. I was not sure if I would have the guts but turns out that it was not as bad as I had thought.
Celebrating Thanksgiving with Mom and Dad Wyatt was a lot of fun as well. Tyler’s oldest brother Brandon came with his family as well, so it was a pretty good sized group. One of the unique traditions they have is to smoke a turkey. It gives it a really good flavor and makes superb gravy. That is definitely a tradition that is worth passing on.

On “Black Friday” we opted to avoid the craziness and went out to do some shooting instead. The guys had competitions while the rest of us either watched or searched the area for brass to recycle. (It is kind of like a treasure hunt!) All in all the week just went by too quickly. We were dragging our feet all the way back to Provo and school. Luckily we only have two more weeks!

Apple Press in Action

This is the Apple press in action. This first picture is of them splitting the apples before butting them through the grinder. The video is of them grinding the apples before putting them in the press. That is Brother Ashton on the left and Jeff, Tyler's co-worker on the right.




And this is how they made the blocks, they had a mold that they put cheese cloth in and filled it with the shredded apples. After they got several blocks on top of each other they used a hydrolic-numatic jack to push down between the top crossbeam and the board above the blocks of apples. And below is the view of the juice draining into bucket. Tyler was holding the camera and trying to help out so it gets a bit wobbly. Sorry it's sideways.




Pretty cool isn't it? Apparently the Ashtons have also been using their press for grapes and other things. I think they like it. In case you are wondering how well the juice comes out, Tyler said that the pulp was practically dry after they had finished juicing it. This kind of press wouldn't have to be this big, or expensive, but that was what he thought the Ashtons would want.

Apple Juice and Fall Colors

Tyler has been working hard to finish an apple press the Ashton's asked him to make. I took a couple pictures of it before he had all the parts on it. The pictures don't do it justice because it is actually very pretty. It looks more like a piece of furniture than something you use to get juice out of apples. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to you looking at the picture because, like I said it doesn't have all the parts on it yet. You will have to talk to Tyler if you want the whole picture.

The leaves have been so pretty lately!

The Latest

We've had a busy semester so far. I'm teaching a lot of classes, and finishing up my requirements for graduation. I am just getting my data analyzed so that I can report what was found. It will be interesting to see if anything came of it. Tyler just finished taking his Optometry Admission Test (OAT) so that is one big stress that is past now.

The leaves up here are just starting to change colors. It is beautiful. I will try to get some pictures as soon as possible.

Washington Trip

I am finally putting up pictures from our trip to Washington. I tried to do it earlier but got waylaid by computer fussiness. Anyway, we left Utah on the 18th of July and got back on the 24th. It was a lot of fun and very relaxing. We arrived in Seattle early Saturday morning and from there took a rental car to a city called Sequim to stay with some of Tyler's family friends.
This is us on the ferry across the Puget Sound.

They took us to see this Troll Village.
All of the fence posts on this fence were different trolls. This one was my favorite.

The next day we drove to a little fishing village called Sekiu to meet up with Tyler's parents and his Brother Nick's family.
We spent the rest of the week there and made some day trips on the side. Monday and Tuesday morning we went crabbing very early in the morning. Between the four of us crabbing (Dad Wyatt, Nick, Tyler and I) I think we caught eight crab total for both days. It was a lot of fun we had to get out in the water with our wadders and our nets and scoop them up when we saw them run past. I forgot to get pictures. But here are some from our evening fishing trip one of the days. Isn't it beautiful?

While we were in the area we had to make a trip to see Forks, it is pretty crazy what has happend in that small town as a result of the Twilight books. Everyone was trying to get their piece of the pie.
Almost every restraunt had some kind of Twilight item on the menu such as Bella Burgers or Jake Blackberry pie. It was pretty funny and kind of rediculus.

The coolest thing there was actually a lumber museum that we didn't know we were supposed to pay for until later.

We also made a trip to La Push on one of the days and enjoyed the waves, the pretty rocks and the amazing driftwood on the beach there.

On our way back through we looked around a bit in Seattle. The whole trip turned out really well and we had a great time.


Thanks to Dad and Mom Wyatt, and Nick's family who were generous enough to let us tag along!

Hiking in Our Back Yard

Last weekend on Memorial day we decided to take a little hike and check out the trail behind our back yard. It took us about 15 minutes to get to this pretty spot called Stewart Falls. It was pretty busy because it was a holiday, but it was still a pretty spot. So if you ever want a short pretty hike you can come and visit us.

We also got a chance to BBQ this weekend, which was fun even with just the two of us. It is so peaceful and beautiful up here in our forest. Tyler grilled chicken, potatoes and asparagus, it was all really good. He is becoming a grill master!

Summer Job

Tyler has been working hard at his new job. He is in charge of cleaning up the "yard" (it is more like an organized forest) around the cabin we live in. He frequently comes home with scratches and bruises from cleaning up trees. You would be amazed to see the piles and piles of dead leaves and branches he pulls out of the "planter boxes".

Occasionally he gets asked to go out and help the crew with other properties that the Ashtons own. Lately he has been going out to "the ranch" where he is turning all his work jeans green from weed whipping so much. It has it's perks too though as we found out today. Tyler was asked to test out the zip line that runs over their pond, so today I went up to the ranch to oversee the test run.
That is the pond, which is the size of a small lake. You can see the small dock with boats next to it, and that tower in the middle is where the zip line starts.
I was gracious enough to let Tyler try it out first. It's probably about a 20-30 foot tower.














And then I decided to try it. It took me a while to work up the courage to get off the platform, but that was the scariest part, after that it was just fun!

Finished Recruiting

That's right I am finished recruiting for my study. I have 82 families participating. Thanks a million to all of you who have helped me get this far! It has been more work than I thought it would be but hopefully it will be downhill from here. I have a few different groups since I would just have people start as soon as I found them. This week the first group is finishing up so I will start collecting data from them next week (if all goes according to plan). It will be nice that way because then I will get the data in waves rather than all at once. It is a huge relief to have everyone recruited, I almost didn't think I would make it this far, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. (Sorry no pictures)

We are almost finished with the semester. Tuesday was the last day of classes and Friday was the first day of finals. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun between Tuesday and Friday. On Wednesday we got a few new inches of snow so we went out snowshoeing.


Saturday we played racquetball in the morning and Ultimate later that night.
Sunday was a beautiful day, and Tyler decided to try making pull-aparts. They turned out really yummy, and we are trying not to eat all of them at once.

The next day my sister Alexis called to see if she could come visit since she was on spring break. Since I didn't teach until noon on Monday we decided it would be fun to go snowshoeing also. I learned my lesson and remembered to bring my camera. Unfortunately, it was snowing pretty hard so I could not seen any of the amazing views of the mountains. So sorry.

Snow shoeing!

Last weekend my friend Sheena (who was my companion in the MTC) came up to go snowshoeing. She had never been before and I had only been once. We decided to just go behind my house, which turned out to be a great idea. It was a lot of fun and a very pretty day. We had received about 4-5 inches of fresh snow the day or two before, plus there was over two feet of compacted snow underneath the fresh stuff. Unfortunately we forgot our cameras on the hike, but we had Tyler snap a picture when we got back. (he had to stay home to study and Sheena's husband had to work)

New Trophy!

On Friday Tyler participated in a charity-fund raiser bowling tournament. There were over 50 guys who participated and some of them were pretty amazing. Right off the bat we could pick out the guy that was going to be the one to beat, but Tyler wasn't too far behind him in scores. Sure enough, in the third round of games Tyler had to play this guy. He lost by about three points (196 to 199 was the final score) which meant that he had to go to the loser's bracket. He beat everyone in his path and made it to the top two where he had to play the same guy for the championship. Everyone that Tyler had beat on the way was there at the end to cheer him on (which tells you something about his attitude) plus others that were just excited to see who would win. By this point Tyler was on his eighth game while the other guy was on his fifth. It was a really close game and a lot of fun to watch, especially since the crowd was mostly cheering for Tyler. Unfortunately one of Tyler's throws, that looked like it was going to be a strike, didn't manage to get all ten pins and one was left standing. It wasn't much but it was enough to give the other guy the opening he needed the final score was 166 to 178. It was okay though, Tyler still got second overall, he got a trophy, some gift certificates, a T-shirt, his name on the wall and a bunch of fans, not to mention that he had a great time, and got a lot of bowling in. These were his scores for the eight games he bowled: 183 191 196 190 166 193 235 166 Pretty amazing isn't it! especially that 235! This is him with his trophy.

Well we were hoping to be done with snow, but this morning we woke up to three fresh inches. Unfortunately it was only up at our elevation so the roads were not plowed by the time we left for school, we made it though. We are hoping that the snow will be melted by the time we head home tonight. And again, I am sorry that I don't have pictures.

So it is snowing again and we are stuck in Sundance so I thought I would share the adventure with everyone. We probably got at least 12 inches last night and it has been snowing like this since. We are about to go outside again and start shoveling. This is the worst snow storm that we got this year. Hopefully it will clear up tonight. (PS- The video is somewhat lower quality, but mostly the fuzziness is coming from the falling snow. It is pretty intense.)

Behind

hey friends and family. Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blogging. Life has been pretty busy and blogging is something I have let slip through the cracks.
We are still doing well though, still in school and still cleaning up snow. We had a fun surprise this weekend when we got to meet Sister Julie B. Beck and here siblings and parents. They were staying at the cabin and saw us shoveling the snow so they invited us in for breakfast. They were very nice people.