Oh How I Love Wyoming Weather....

Well it has been freezing here in good ol' Wyoming. Yesterday it was -27 degrees without the wind chill. Our water has this awesome tendency to freeze so I left the hot water running all night. When I woke up to go to the gym this morning I came across a grave discovery. Our hot water was frozen. This is the third time this winter that our water has froze!!!

Well as it just so happens, Eric is out of town for work. I called him at 5:45 this morning bawling and freaking out. He was so good and patient with me! He said that he could call a plumber and get someone out there to take care of the water. But I didn't want to have to do that so instead he instructed me on what to do. I got bundled up as best as I could seeming as how it was -34 degrees outside. I had on Eric's HUGE carharts, a flannel jacket, a winter coat, three pairs of socks, the worst snow boots in the world, and cute fashionable gloves, gloves that should not be warn in the winter. They are more suited for fall... My feet and fingers were frozen after about 10 minutes of being outside. I came back inside and stood by my electric heater for a while. I called Eric about a million times. I bet he could hardly understand me because of my frozen lungs and my sobbing. I worked on the pipes until about 8:30.

By this time I was officially frozen. I called Eric and said I can't do this anymore I am too cold. He told me that was totally fine and that he would get it taken care of. But after warming up a little bit I figured I would give it one more shot. I tried calling some people for some help but no one answered. I finally got ahold of my cousin Tyler. His car wouldnt start and the hood was frozen shut so he couldn't jump it. So our friend Ben Skinner offered to come out to my house with him and help out. They got to my place at about 9:30. We spent another two hours out in the freezing cold but eventually we got the water unthawed. BEST. FEELING. EVER.

I am so so so so so so thankful for Tyler and Ben and their willingness to come and stand out in negative degree weather for 2 hours for me! I don't know what I would do without my family and friends!!!!!! They take such good care of me while Eric is away working his butt off to support us!

Christmas And Such!

Our winter break was pretty awesome!!!! A few days before Christmas Eric's family and I went to Eric's cousin's wedding. After the wedding, we went back to Evanston. It was our first Christmas together and it was GREAT! Eric spoiled the crap out of me!! He got me a new coat, a camera, and some cute boots! He pretty much rocks! I got him an Ipod touch and he hasn't put it down once!!! Guess he likes it!!!!

We also were able to spend New Years Eve in Evanston. It was a lot of fun. Evanston, of course, had a HUGE firework show at midnight! It was freezing and some dumb idiot had her little kid outside in shorts and just a little windbreaker jacket. How stupid?! He had to be freeeeeezing! I was even cold and I was all bundled up!

During our break, we had some friends check on the house to make sure our water didn't freeze. Low and behold it did! I came home and did not have water for a few days! That sure was fun...I basically lived in town until Eric came home. Once Eric did come home we were able to start working on our frozen pipes. Eric got the water unthawed but then we heard running water. Eric looked under our house and water was POURING out. We ran inside only to discover that the pipes had bursted inside our house and had flooded our living room. My cousin Tyler came over and helped Eric out. Eventually everything was fixed (thankgoodness I have a handy man for a hubby) and our house was put back together.

A couple of weekends later we went up to Star Valley. We went snow machining with my cousin Tyler, his wife Katie, and my Aunt Tami. We had soooooo much fun! Eric loves snow machining and I think he was happy that he had Tyler there that way they could go and do some crazy snow machining.

So that sums up our lives lately!

Our First Christmas

Presents!

New Years Eve

Ripped Apart House

Shattered Pipes

Snow Machining

Wedding Pictures Finallllly!

It turns out that Eric's uncle sent us our wedding pictures in July. We didn't know that he had sent them so we weren't worried when we never got them. It turns out that Eric's uncle never got the pictures returned to him and we never recieved them. So our wedding pictures are floating around out there somewhere!!!!! But, we went to Eric's cousin's wedding on the 21st and his uncle gave us a copy of our wedding pictures. So almost 7 months later, here are some of our wedding pictures:

Thankful FOR Thanksgiving!

Well, it's that time of year again! Wooohooo! The Holiday Season is sooooo much fun and it all starts with THANKSGIVING!!!! Eric and I spent Thanksgiving with my family and we are going to spend Christmas with his family. This is the first year both of us have been or will be away from our families for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Eric went through it first. I think he had a hard time being away from his family during Thanksgiving. He still seemed happy though :) I am a little sad about being away from my family for Christmas. It will be hard but I am excited to spend time with my inlaws and get to know them better! Plus as long as I am with Eric everything will be just fine!!!!

The day before Thanksgiving we went to the new Rec Center in Gillette. It is really nice and a lot of fun. We swam around and rode the slides and the lazy river quite a few times. We also sat in the hot tub and relaxed and just enjoyed ourselves! For Thanksgiving we went over to a family friends house. It was nice to meet up with some friends and just have a really relaxed Thanksgiving day. We ate tons of delicious food and then sat around and talked! The day after Thanksgiving Eric and my brother Brandon went and played hunter men. They went up to the Big Horns to look for Mountain Lions and Bob Cats with a good family friend. They were gone ALL DAY! They didn't see anything though because there was not enough snow to track them :( Eric really wanted to see a mountain lion but he still had a good time. The last day we were in Gillette, I got to babysit the cutest little baby ever! Her name is Aspen and she is an absolute doll. After babysitting her, my family, Eric, and I all went to the Rec Center yet again. Dad and Brandon went to the pool while the rest of us played tennis and went rock climbing! It was so much fun. Eric is AMAZING at rock climbing. He scurried up the wall without a problem! Once we came home from our awesome break, we found broken and frozen pipes. Eric and I (but mostly Eric) spent most of Sunday fixing them. Talk about a good time....

I love the Thanksgiving break! It is nice to spend time with family and spend time away from school. It is also a time for me to reflect on how lucky I am and how much I have to be thankful for!!!!

Before Thanksgiving Break Eric and I were Going to Go to the Temple. Plans Got Changed and We Were Unable to Go So We Are Kind of Bummed in This Pic :(

But Since We Weren't Able To Go To The Temple, We Were Able To Go To The Cowboy Open

Eric And I At The Wrestling (He Hates Taking Picures With Me)




My Dad During Thanksgiving Break

My Beautiful Mother

Cute Little Kolter

Eric Holding Aspen!

So Stinking Cute!

My Monkey Man :)

Woohoo! Rock Climbing

After We Got Done Rock Climbing

The Wonderful Frozen Pipes We Came Home To

FiNaLlY LiFe HaS SlOwEd DoWn!!!!!

Before I start writing about how busy our lives have been, I first must vent. This sweet, innocent, fury, cute picture is a picture of my dog aka Roxy. Yes I know she is adorable (even though I have been told that she has a face only a mother could love) but do not let her fool you. She has an addiction. An addiction to destroying my house!!!! She gets bored when Eric is at work and I am at school. To show us how much she hates us leaving her, she chews up our things! Here is a list of all the things she has chewed up in the last 4 1/2 months:

1. My Camera Case
2. Four Hair Bands
3. Eric's Red Devils Blanket
4. Not One but TWO of our remotes
5. Christmas Lights
6. All the Boxes our Wedding Presents are in
7. My Friend's Wedding Present
8. Her Kennel
9. Part of the Wall
10. Candles
11. Socks
12. Two T-shirts
And the biggest thing that I am most upset about that she has chewed up,
13. Our Love Seat

We have tried everything to keep her from chewing on things but nothing has worked so far. I even called my Uncle Richard. He is a vet and he said that she needs to be locked up when no one is home because her breed is the type that will chew up everything you own until the day they die. We hate locking her up :( but we cannot have her keep chewing up our house like this. I try and make my house look nice and I cannot have my sweet little pup tearing it up!

Alright well on to all the things we have been doing since our last post!

First and most importantly, Eric got his first bull elk with his BOW! Yep, he is amazing. I was there to see it all! It was so exciting. I am so proud of him :) Once Eric shot him we waited a while to let him die. After waiting for a bit we started looking for the blood trail. We were able to follow it for a little bit and then the blood just stopped. There was no sign of the elk. I was even on my stomach looking for blood and low and behold NOTHING. I was so nervous because I knew that if we did not find the elk Eric would not be happy. I think I prayed approximately 18 times for us to find Eric's elk. So while I was on my stomach army crawling around the forest looking for blood, Eric was wandering around the forest. After about an hour of searching, Eric found him! There was not even a drop of blood around him!!! Eric then quartered him up (with a little help from me!) and we started hauling him out. It only took us TWO TRIPS!!!!! On the first trip Eric had a pack so we were able to put a lot of meat on his back. I helped by hugging a front quarter to my stomach. I was able to haul it around for quite a while until my stupid shoulders started hurting! Then Eric carried it the rest of the way to the truck. On the second trip, we loaded up the rest of the meat onto Eric's back. That was a bad idea. It had to have weighed at least 80 pounds or more. I felt AWFUL. I didn't have a single thing to carry and we had to stop about every 20 yards so that Eric could rest. All I could do to help was be Eric's cheerleader! We eventually made it to the truck. When we made it home we washed up the meat and set it out on top of our roof. The next day Eric loaded up the meat in the truck. During this process he lost his wedding ring :( It is still currently MIA.

The Elk

BLOOD!

Poor Exhausted Eric :(

The next weekend Eric and I went to the Dierks Bentley and Lynyrd Skynyrd Concert. We somehow scored awesome seats. When I went to buy tickets the guy asked what type of tickets I wanted and I said the cheapest ones. So I got two of the cheapest tickets and then the guy upgraded us to floor seats for free! We were only three rows from the stage!!!!! It was a pretty fun concert. Eric and I had a lot of fun!!!!! Eric was so impressed with Dierks hair that he is even growing his hair out like Dierks now :)

Then the next weekend we went to the Boise v. Wyoming game. Needless to say, we got our butts kicked. We still had a lot of fun though!!!!



Then the next weekend Eric bought me these beautiful Gerber Daisies. He did it just because he wanted to!!!! How sweeeeet is that!!!!!!


After that weekend Eric started his 9 days on and 5 days off!!!! He came home last Tuesday and was able to stay clear until Sunday!!!!!! And on Friday my entire family came up for the Homecoming game. It was a very fun weekend (even though I didn't get a single picture). Minus the fact that one of my brothers ruined our toilet. Both of them feel the need to lean back on the toilet tank when they are taking a #2. One of them leaned back on the toilet on Saturday. Because they did this, our tank started leaking like CRAZY! Who leans back on the toilet? Or as Eric likes to say "It's not a freaking recliner" hahahaha! Well the leak ruined the flooring around the toilet so Eric had to tear that up and he has to replace it during his next break from work. Also Eric and my Dad spent about 4 hours fixing the toilet. I am glad to say that the toilet is fixed, the tank is a little crooked, but fixed all the same. I am so happy and glad that I have a handy man for a husband :)

So between the fun weekends and the crazy amount of homework I have been getting, our life has been very hectic. It has finally started to slow down again though :)