Our First Home

Tyson and I bought our first home this past August- We LOVE it! It's perfect for us- it's just the right size, located in a safe, beautiful area, (minutes away from the Bountiful Temple where we were married) two stories with a large loft, and best of all, it fits in our budget. We got an amazing deal on it. Tyson is so handy around the house with all the renovations we decided to embark on. He and his brothers installed a beautiful lamenent wood flooring in place of the worn-out carpet, and put in all kinds of shelving to maximize our storage space. I've been focusing on choosing the wall colors and painting them. I love the vaulted ceilings, except when it comes to climbing a ladder and attempting to paint 26 feet above the floor. I actually about lost my balance when I was rushing too much one day, and in the process, spilled the paint all over the side of my face and body. Wow- pretty funny from Tyson's perspective, not so funny from mine. It actually stained all the way through to every layer of my underwear! Nice- gotta love that. Anyway, inspite of the mishaps, we feel greatly blessed.

A Bench to Himself

This is obviously not an actual picture of the event I'm describing . . .but you get the idea.

If I could write a book about the things my students say to me, I think Saturday Night Live would buy the rights. I'll give just one example of a recent incident. At the high school I teach at, there are a few benches outside the locker rooms where my students will sit while they wait for everyone to finish changing. Because of budget cuts this year, my class sizes have almost doubled, resulting with far more students in a PE class than what the benches can accommodate for. Therefore, a lot of my students will try to change into their PE clothes as quickly as possible, just so they can get a bench to sit on while they wait, (as if they will be sitting for very long!! It's a PE class, but whatever . . . . )

Anyway, a few days ago, one of my more confident athletic and I guess you could say, 'popular' students came up to me and said, "Miss JJ (they still call me that even though I'm married now), I can guarantee you that I will get a bench all to myself today." I raised my eyebrows and laughed, "Oh really? Show me." I knew this would be impossible unless he took some kind of drastic action that would get him sent to the principal's office.

With that, this boy (his name is Ethan) walked over to a bench that already had some girls sitting on it. They skooted over to allow him room. After Ethan had placed himself down, he looked over at the girls and said with a totally serious face and no sign of sarcasm in his voice, "I really feel like I have to let out a huge fart." (My mom hates that word-- sorry Mom). I wish I had a camera to record the girls' disgusted reactions. Within seconds they were all sitting on each others' laps in an attempt to get as far away as they could from Ethan . I was dying! Really, you had to be there to see their faces. It was classic!

A few seconds later, another unassuming student walked out and sat next to the now vacant place next to Ethan. Ethan looked over at him and said, "Hey William, have you ever had to fart so bad, you felt like you'd explode?" A little confused, William said, "Uhhh . . yeah . .. why?" Ethan then responded, "That's how I feel right now." Not a second later, William was up and Ethan was left alone on the bench. With a huge and satisfied grin, Ethan looked up at me and said, "See Miss JJ . . . I told you I could." LOL! I still laugh when I think about it. Seriously, if I had a camera, I could have made a popular You-tube video . . . . Crazy kids. . . .

U of U Halloween Game

For Halloween, instead of answering the door all night, Tyson asked me out on a date. He first surprised me with dinner at the restaurant we went to on our first date, (Applebees) and then we headed over to the University of Utah's Halloween Black-out game. Everyone had to wear black and/or a costume. In spite of my loyalty to BYU, I have to admit the U played a whole lot better than the last BYU game I watched.

In this picture . . .I got distracted by the U fans that had just caused one of the benches to collapse, (they were pretty proud of themselves since they were trying to do it all during the last half).

Northern Lights

I've always been so fascinated by the Northern Lights-- I can be kind of a science geek sometimes. I even tried to recreate the Northern Lights in my 8th grade science fair project, (not exactly successful- apparently you need to have some kind of a license in order to purchase concentrated forms of Neon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Carbon Dioxide; and13-year-olds don't qualify for that license- crazy huh?) Anyway, recently the Northern Lights were spotted in Yellow Knife, Canada. Here's two pictures taken of it:



Last week, on the Idaho/Washington border, an even greater phenomena was spotted. It's called a Fire Rainbow- one of the most rare forms of Northern Lights. The event lasted for one hour. In order for a Fire Rainbow to form, the clouds must be cirrus, at least 20K above the earth and have just the right amount of ice crystals. If all these factors are in place, the sun then must hit the clouds at precisely a 58 degree angle. It really amazes me how miraculously detailed and beautiful the works of God are. It humbles me even more when I think that He says His greatest works though, are His children- creating them to become beautiful and miraculous like He is.

Carving Pumpkins

Jim and Tyson at Work

This is Jim and Christi's daughter, Tori

Christi, Tori, and Jim

So, most of my life, I have thought pumpkin carving was limited to cutting triangles and squares with a steak knife. This past week, Tyson and I took our jack-o-lantern creating to a whole new level. Yep, that's right . . .the pumpkin you see in these pictures is the pumpkin Tyson and I carved, all by ourselves! We got together with some good friends of ours: Jim and Christi and after we fueled up with some dinner, Christi and Jim showed us the higher way of pumpkin carving--- they are old pros at this Halloween art. Good times- now we just need to get out the Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin movie.

Bear Lake Reunion

Some of my family vacationed at Bear Lake- it was the perfect weather to be in a cabin by the beach. Debbie stayed a few nights with me and Tyson at our enormous 700 square foot one bedroom apartment before and after the Bear Lake stay. :0) It was so sad to drop her off at the airport a week later. You get quickly used to having family around.
Tim gave me some sweet sunglasses from China . . . check these babies out!

Above: My Dad with some of his grandkids: Joseph, Alex, Weston, Danny--- Doesn't Joseph look so happy?

Debbie and I at the Macaroni Grill . . . before Joseph's water got spilled


My mom with one of granddaughters, Bethany-- they were working on this puzzel . . .yeah, we never finished that one.

Jason and Rachel's Wedding

(Below) The Walker Family: From Left to Right: Blake, Bryan, Loren,Diane, Jason, Tori, Cody, Tyson

The "Racy Modeling Shoot" : Left to Right- Kendra, Angela, Tori

Tyson Spinning Kendra; Me Spinning Kendra

This weekend, the whole Walker clan drove up to Washington to see Jason, (Tyson's oldest brother) get married to Rachel Hawkins in the Spokane Temple. In spite of the long drive, we had a lot of fun. My favorite part was just sitting around and hanging out, even though our clothes were sticky and wet from sweating in the July sun. I believe this was the first time I had ever seen Jason wear a tux . . . and smile about it. Tori ate a little too much wedding cake and ended up stealing my camera with Angela to take some racy modeling shots. Kendra (2 years old) joined in with the modeling shoot, too. Cody crashed into my shin and gave himself a bruise. (Ha ha- who's tougher now?!) Tyson sat in a bunch of paint dust with his black dress pants. Blake tore his flip-flop in an aggressive game of 21 with me, Tyson and Cody. What more could you ask for in a weekend getaway?

4th of July Camping

In this picture to the right, I am standing on my "stump" that I had originally planned to sit on for the camp fire . . . until it poured rain on us.

They say if you love someone enough, you'll do almost anything for them . . . and in my case, that's camping. Tyson and I got together with Blake and Angela (with their two children) and Tori to go camping in the Logan, UT canyon. In spite of my 'non-camping' self, I had a really good time. I guess if you have the right company, anything can be fun.


Above: Kendra and Trisha sitting on their sweet camp fire chairs- gotta love the zebra print

Tyson's Birthday

Tyson keeps complaining that he is getting "old" now that he is 26 . . . yeah, I wish he would keep those comments to himself when I'm around. :0) For his birthday I made my first ice cream cake ever-- and I only wasted one box of cake doing it! We got together with Blake, Angela, Tori to watch what he was dying to watch in a THX sound theater: Transformers.

Pics From Our Cruise Stop in Ensanada Mexico

You can see our cruise ship in the background of the picture of Tyson, (I think he was trying to pose with his $5 sunglasses- sweet.) We took a horseback riding tour while our ship was at the port. During the ride, Tyson kept trying to talk with a Mexican accent. Adding to the effect were his white, Utah-winter legs he was sporting out in his shorts. I'm just glad the tour guide couldn't hear us. Tyson's favorite part was the fact that his horse had a lot of gas that day and kept "letting it out" right in my face since my horse was directly behind him!

Wedding Pictures

Here are a few pictures that our photographer, D'Andrew, took:

Jones Family: Mike, Debbie, Brent, Mom, me, Dad, Mindy, Ben, Tim

Walker Family: Kendra, Blake, Trisha, Angela, Cody, Diane (mom), Tyson and me, Loren (dad), Tori, Jason, Jesenia, Bryan, Seneca

The Ladies: Angela, Tori, Jesenia, Bethany, Jill, me, Mindy, Debbie, Paige, Jamie

The Boys: Tim, Loren (Tyson's dad), Mike, Danny, Brent, Tyson, Dallas (my dad), Ben

My mom made this wedding dress

If you click on this picture, you can see some of the bead work that my Mom did.