Bake me a cake as fast as you can!

So I've been learning something new his semester. Cake decorating. I love it! Here's a few of the cakes I've done this semester.

Mesa Falls

To ensure that we enjoy the last few days of good weather, we decided to take a little photography field trip to Mesa Falls. We packed ourselves a little picnic and took off on our journey. It was so pretty. I'd been there before but it was Steven first time. We were able to get in some really good shots before the sun went down. It was lot of fun. We've been really lucky with the weather lately. It's been so nice, and its the getting toward the end of October. Midterms have were last week and this week, so I find myself trying to avoid studying in a variety of ways, mostly involving Harry Potter and cleaning. Steven studies like crazy, and me with all of my 3 hour classes, never have too much home work, but am in class from sun up til sun down. The best new is that today was the last day of my flower ID class, so no more late night scientific name cramming for bi-weekly quizes! I was given a new calling in our ward which I'm really excited about, I'm the visiting teaching disrict leader, or something like that. It's going to be really fun. Basically I get to go visit teach like 10 people, so I'll make all sorts of friends. On sunday I met a girl who also swears by Harry Potter books on tape, so I think we'll be great friends. Enjoy our Mesa falls Pictures!

We're loving Rexburg in the Fall

It's been quite sometime since our last post. A lot has happened. Steven's doing really well. After he got out of the wheel chair, he was on crutches for a little while and no he's walking like a champ. He stills goes to physical therapy twice a week but is doing really really well. I have been going to physical therapy as well but hopefully today will be my last time (crossing my fingers). The weeks have really been flying by since we arrived here in Rexburg. School keeps us busy. I'm on campus M-Th 7:45ish am to 7pm (fridays aren't as long), and then I get to work on home work. Steven stars at 7:45 as well but is done with classes by 12:30, so he is able to have a part time job and work from 2-6 everyday, and then he gets to do homework. So we're definitally not bored. We hardely ever have any down time, and when we do, I usually find myself thinking about flowers...yes flowers. I'm in a flower ID class and we learn on average 20 plants a week. Both scientific and common names as wells various facts about them and are quized twice a week on them. I'm quite certain I've never studied so much for one single class in my life. We still find time to do all sorts of fun stuff though. Not to long ago for family night we went out to the apple orchards and I taughts Steven to shoot pictures on manual mode with our camera. It was lots of fun.

We were also able to take a short trip down to Burley Idaho to attend one of Steven's mission companions wedding reception. There really isn't a whole lot in Burley EXCEPT for the coolest park known to mankind. It's called the Story book park and it has the biggest play toy I've ever seen, and I've seen my fair share of parks. The pictures don't really do it justice. It was ginormous and had hidden crawl spaces and really...fun...things...All in all it was a good trip. Steven really liked it... We haven't been keeping up on picture of us though. I'm in a digital photography class this semester so when we do go and take pictures its of trees...and waterfalls...flowers...I did get Steven to sit still for a photoshoot, in my favorite one I accidentally turned him blue...it happens, honest mistake.

It's starteing to get cold here and I get to wear a scarf everyday. I'm happy a bout it now because its only like 50 degree's. Come time when it's a necessity to wear a scarf or your neck will fall off, I don' think I'll be quite as pleased. I'm making a scarf for Steven right now. It's gonna be supa warm. At the Simm's family reunion Missy tried to teach me to knit, but I resorted back to the cheating knitting circles. It's so much easier. Other than the weather droping several degrees everyday, we're really enjoying Rexburg. And other good news is I think I've got Steven convinced that once we have a house, Instead of 2 pug dogs, we need a pug and a sheep!

Emergency Room Pictures (Not for the squeemish)

Steven insisted that some we had some pictures of him and his owie in the emergency room. Now that we have those, he really wishes we had pictures of his leg before it was set...that is to say while he was still laying in the intersection.

One week down

It's so strange that the accident was over a week ago. Steven is doing so well. He's quite the trooper. His pain tolerance in unbelievable, and has always been from what I'm told. Cindy (Mama J) just said that he's made of more steel that he used to be, quite literally. He's getting back his range of motion and can bend his knee on his own now. We're all so proud. Tomorrow we're going in to Harbor View for him to get a new cast for his wrist. As of right now we're looking at not having to have surgery on it. Yay! With this new cast he's getting, he won't have to be in a wheel chair either. Another big plus. He'll either be on platform crutches or a platform walker. Since he can't use his hand, there'll be a platform for him to rest his elbow on.
Steven went ahead and took the bandages of his leg. He's pretty ecstatic about how huge his scar is going to be. The scar on top of his leg is where the bone came through, and then he has some small incisions on his hip where the put the rod through. We definitally have more pictures too. Steven made sure we got pictures of him before he went into surgery, all the blood and gore. He even asked if they could tape it. Boys will be boys.

Accidents Happen

I don't have time to recap the accident, so I'm going to post the recap that I emailed Amanda. Along with pictures of course!

So the husband and i packed a lunch and where headed out to
Mud mountain dam outside Enumclaw. About a 45 minute drive, but it was
a nice day and we love taking the vespa out. So we set off. Luckily,
we both decided to wear jeans and long shirts even though it was warm
and humid. i also wore converse instead of the normal flip flops. So
were on this straight stretch of road going the speed limit, 50mph,
and the light at the intersection is green for us as long as we could
see it. as we enter the intersection, part way through it this guy,
totally oblivious to anything going on, blows his red light not even
slowing down and we T-bone slam his truck right in front of his rear
tire. there was no time fro Steven to slow down or react in any way.
so Steven said he saw it coming a fraction of a second before he hit so
he closed his eyes but I didn't, I didn't even see it comin'. so what
happened to me was I went flying off landed right on my head, then
kinda bounced on my left side, rolled a few times and then slid on my
back for a while. The seem on my jeans split on the bounce, so
everyone saw my panties. neither on of us loss consciousness, so we
both remember all the details. so as soon as i stop spinning, i look
up, I’m about 15ft from the bike and Steven is like a little less than
10 feet from me, and he's bleeding form the mouth and nose, screaming,
looking straight at me, and his legs bent all icky. The truck was
turning the corer, so when Steven hit we hit at sort of an angle, so
his femur snapped on impact and then he was thrown and landed on his
back too. But he hit the truck so hard with his body that he had paint
from the truck all across his shoulder and across his chest and must
have hit his face on the bed of the truck, his nose got a little
damage. so after just a minute or so he gained composure and stopped
screaming, and i was able to convince the people holding my down that
i was not broken and go over to him. but ok, so our lights green, this
guy blows the light, we hit, Stevens laying mangled and bleeding in
the road and I’m like thrown 15 ft, Stevens facing our light and its
still green, and this kid gets out and says, " I had the right of way
didn't I?" no you most certainly did not sir. There were all sorts of
witnesses and a cop like maybe 100yards away, so clearly his fault.
I was only with Steven long enough for the emt's to cut the pant leg
of Steven jeans. It was awful. His femur broke just above the
knee on his left leg, and the bone exited the skin to the right and
all of his muscle balled up to his inner thigh and his knee was
facing out pretty good. After that they took me to an ambulance and
put a neck collar on me and taped me to a board and took me to a
hospital. Steven, they gave him morphine and set his leg on sight,
ambulanced him to the hospital and life flighted him to a specialty
hospital in Seattle. They made me stay in the hospital in Enumclaw for
about 4hrs strapped to that stupid board for cats scans and x-rays,
when they decided I wasn't broken, I got to leave to see Steven. When
I got there they had him on traction getting ready to take him to the
operating room. So traction is like the grossest thing ever. They
drilled a hole through his knee and put a bar through it, tied a rope
to that and put a weight on it to straighten his bone out. ew. So in
surgery, I guess bones are hollow, but they scrapped a little more out
of his femur and put a rod in from top to bottom, bolted to his hip
and then to his knee. So they did that Saturday night/Sunday morning
at about 1am. Yesterday he went in for x-rays on his wrist cause it was
bothering him and found another fracture so now he's in a huge ole arm
cast and looks so sad :( it breaks my heart. So we came home today,
he's in a wheel chair until they can operate on his wrist and put a
screw in there for something or another. So once he's up and moving
he'll have to go through physical therapy. I start physical therapy
tomorrow for my back, neck and shoulder. It's gonna be a long process,
especially for him. he'll be in a walker then to crutches eventually.
poor Steven. funny how fast life changes. He asked me how I was doing
right after we crashed and I said it's no picnic, get it, we were
heading to have a picnic. but a slightly funny thing, because we were
heading to a picnic, my back pack was full of water bottles and they
broke when I landed on them, and it looked like I’d wet myself.
anyway, that about sums everything up. any questions? anyway, needless
to say this sucks. I go back to work tomorrow and Steven won't/can't
go back so poor Steven :( all in all, we're oober blessed we weren't
hurt worse going as fast as we were and as he was. Helmets are little
miracle workers. Always wear one, even in the car :)

Our First Official Post!

Greetings! This is our first actual posting, and I'm still not quite sure how this all works. Steven and I are both doing great. We both got our motorcycle permits not to long ago and have been loving it! Papa J has been kind enough to let us take his vespa out on occassion, and we have had a lot of fun. Our first excussion was to Flaming Gyser Park. My least favorite ride we've been on. I decided it was a good idea to walk on the rocks across the river (although Steven will tell you it was a stream or small tributary. There was still a lot of water) and well, I fell in, along with my camera. I was able to get my camera to work for about 10min this last weekend when we took the vespa out to Point Defiance Zoo and Aquairium. I only got it to work long enough to get some pictures of the fish. Too bad too because the walruses were adoreable! It sure was a warm day out in the sun. A reader board read 93 degrees as we were passing through Enumclaw. I got a nice sun burn on my legs and feet.

At the end of April, Steven and I went and had our portraits done for family night and a mothers day present, they turned out really cute. I'm quite sure this is the only picture if the two of us since we've been married.

Amanda comes home so soon! I can't even wait. My plane tickets are already purchased! Steven allowed me to quit my job for the occassion. I get to got home for almost 2 whole weeks! It'll be so nice to do nothing and sit around with just family catching up. After I come back to FW I'll have just a few weeks to pack up our house and then we'll be off to Rexburg. Time is seriously flying!

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