One year older and wiser too

My 25th year is over! I turned 26 this past week and it's weird to think that I am that age. My actual birthday was just another normal day. Shelby worked and I did homework, then we headed up to the mountains for Cameron's Eagle Scout Project. The night before my birthday, Cameron made me a birthday cake and Shelby put together a birthday party with my family via skype. It was fun to talk to everyone although we missed my dad since he was working late, but I did get to see him on my actual birthday. Here are some pictures from the birthday weekend!

^ The view that I woke up to from our bedroom door on my birthday. Shelby had filled balloons with startbursts (it's like he knows I hate the sound of balloons popping or something! :) and lined the stairs with startbursts.

^ Not the best picture but here's Cameron and the wildlife biologist he worked with to coordinate his Eagle project explaining how the project was going to work. We took sample plots of forest and counted how much bitter brush was in each plot to determine whether or not the forest service needed to plant more for the winter elk to graze on. We were working in an area that was severely burned by a forest fire in 2012.

^ Since we had so many starbursts we decided to roast them over our stove-not quite the same as a fire pit but good enough!

Opening presents from Shelby. Love him!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday cards, texts, wishes, and gifts! You know who you are! :) Happy Friday!

Work in Progress

As you can see, I am slowly getting a new blog design put together! It is going to be a work in progress! Stay tuned for more to come!

Races and big changes coming...

Life has been moving along quickly and we can't believe that it is almost the end of May already! Shelby finished his last semester at CSI. It was one of the busiest, roughest semesters so far mostly because we are learning to find the balance and both of us had a little too much on our plates. We survived though and Shelby's 4.0 GPA is still intact! I am so proud of all his hard work. We have a lot of people make comments to us about how I'm the "sugar momma" but I just have to say that Shelby has paid for all of his schooling through his hard work and diligence. We have been so blessed as far as scholarships. The weekend right after the semester ended we headed to Boise to spend time with family and run in the Idaho Potato Marathon. Shelby ran the half-marathon and I ran the 5K. We are so glad that Casey and Kelsee invited us to run with them! It was fun and everyone ran great.

^Here is Shelby crossing the finish line. Shelby and Casey's races started at 7 am and Kelsee and mine didn't start until 10 so we were able to watch them cross the finish line before we ran off to catch the shuttle to get to our starting point.

My parents and Lila, Cameron, and Curtis also came and watched all of us cross the finish line. It was fun to spend the weekend with them and do fun stuff that we don't normally get to do very often. We also were conveniently in town for Jon and Karlie Truman's wedding so it was nice to be able to go to that. It was in a barn and definitely very Idaho-that's the only way I can think to describe it. :) Also while we were in the Treasure Valley we spent several hours apartment hunting. Yes, it is official we are moving to Boise the middle to end of the summer! Shelby is transferring to BSU to finish his Bachelors degree before we head off to Physical Therapy school. Job and apartment hunting are in full force! We are sad to leave Twin Falls but are excited for our next big adventure. If anyone knows of any good apartments in Boise or open RN positions let us know!!! :)

Easter 2014 in pictures

Saturday morning Shelby ran the Falls to Falls 10.5 mile race. He did amazing coming in 2nd place overall and 1st in his age group! Saturday evening we had dinner with the Hyde's to celebrate Jeremy's birthday. On Easter Sunday we went to church, stopped by Shelby's parent's for a little while,then came home and found our Easter baskets, had an Easter egg hunt, and decorated Easter eggs. We are kids at heart. :)

I am so grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ and that we could celebrate His Resurrection this weekend. I know that because of Him I will be with my family forever and my weaknesses will be made strong. We hope everyone had a happy Easter!

Life Lately

I haven't been so hot at updating the blog regularly-full time work and school will do that to ya. Here are some pictures of what we've been up to lately!

^ I found this cute frame on sale at the store and decided to buy it and completely repaint it. I love it and it adds a nice touch of color to our living room!

^ We fed the ducks after General Conference on Sunday. It was super windy but we wanted to get out and enjoy the sunshine after sitting so much this weekend.

^ My eyes are closed but you can see all of our little ducky friends. :)

^ Shelby has been running like a mad man training for the half-marathon that he has coming up in May. I have been trying to run also but haven't been quite as successful...let's just say that running is not super enjoyable for me...I'd rather be in a dance studio to get my workout in!

^ We visited baby Myla, Amy, and Jesse a few weeks ago. It was so fun to see them and hold their little one! We wish that they still lived closer so we could try to see them more often. :)

^ During the last part of Spring Break we went to Middleton to visit the Despain's. We played darts and had lots of fun just hanging out. The first part of spring Break was spent with the Hyde's. I had to work the majority of the time but from what I hear they had a blast!

^ Just more evidence that Shelby is running like crazy...his toenails are even falling off! Here's to more warm weather and Spring activities!!!!

Birthday Fun!

Shelby had a birthday this week! He had a Chemistry exam the next day so we kept it pretty low key since he needed to study most of the day. I made Shelby brunch after his morning class and sang him Happy Birthday over a pile of french toast. :) We both studied and Shelby went to work for a few hours that afternoon. After work Shelby's parent came over and brought him his favorite chicken patties from Costco. He loves his chicken patties! We went to Sizzler for dinner. We had coupons for all you can eat Shrimp but apparently they were old (although they had no expiration date-whatever.) Note to self: if you get coupons from Sizzler in the mail use them within at least a week or else they'll be old...We ended up getting steak and salad bar instead.

For one of Shelby's presents I gave him a slinky. Inside the slinky I put a piece of paper stating that he had money to put towards a GPS running watch (similar to a Garmin.) Shelby got online that night and promptly found a great deal. He is anxiously awaiting for his birthday present to arrive!

Also within the last few weeks we got our new sectional! We love it and are enjoying not having to sit on the floor anymore! :)

Spring is slowly arriving in our neck of the woods. We planted some bulbs that will hopefully come up in a few months as well as this nice little flower (I think it's a primrose...) Sadly, just like typical Idaho weather, our flower froze one night! There are still a few buds on it that are coming and we are trying to keep the little plant alive despite the rough start it had.

We are excited for this warm weather to stick around consistently so we can get some more apartment gardening going!

July can't come soon enough!

Today has been full of catching up on laundry, grocery shopping, and life since I worked all weekend. I am always grateful for days off, especially after working several 12 hour shifts in a row! I'm also grateful for Shelby and that he puts up with the Sundays that I end up having to work. Yesterday after church he put away all of our winter/snowman/Valentine day decorations and put up our Spring ones...it was cute and nice to come home to bright, happy decorations. :) Anyways, on to even cuter things- I am getting excited for the summer to come! Especially July. Mostly because we will finally get to meet this little guy!

Briggs is our newest nephew and the first grandchild for my family. My sister and her husband live in Virginia while he is going to Dental School. Briggs was born in December in Virginia and the most we have seen of him is over facetime. He is a little cutie and I can't wait to hold him and see Lindsey and Brenen in action as parents. I wish that plane tickets weren't so darn expensive or else I would just fly myself out there. We are grateful for technology so that we can facetime, skype, see pictures, and videos of Briggs while Lindsey and Brenen are off on their Virginia adventure. :) I can already tell though that it is going to be a great Despain family reunion this summer!!!