Slacking

I guess I've officially joined the club of people who are slacking on their blogs. I'll try to be better for the sake of our family who probably reads this. . . but I'm not making any promises. The past couple of months have been busy, but good. My job is going well. I like teaching and my class is fun, which makes it easier to go to work everyday. The hour commute both ways gets tiring by the end of the week, but I really like my students and it's cool to see the progress that some of them have made. It's different teaching college freshman, makes for some pretty entertaining moments at times! I try to keep it light during class, their favorite thing to do is call me out whenever I spell something wrong on the board, which is about 3 times a day, no joke! Anyway it's going well and I'm lucky to be doing something that I love and that I am good at.

Jared's job is good. It's still been a struggle pushing new ideas in the creative department at Trek, but he's been making some progress which is encouraging. He had a business trip out to Vegas last month for a couple of days, and so he was able to spend some time with my family in STG. I'm jealous he got to visit without me, but he had a great time and I'm glad he was able to go! He decided to buy a bunch of winter riding gear so that he can keep riding to work even when it's cold. . . like 25 degrees outside, no thanks! 

We went back to Cleveland for my friend Addie's wedding a couple of weeks ago. I was pretty lame and didn't take any pictures, but it was great wedding and she was a beautiful bride. We stayed with my Oma and she was excited to cook for us :)  Jared hooked up her new blu-ray player and we coerced him into watching The Sound of Music with us. He'd always bagged that movie even though he'd never seen it before, and now he admits that it's actually good (or maybe I might be putting words in his mouth)! 

My parents came to visit this past weekend which was really nice. We saw some cool sights here around Madison and then we took my dad over to the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee yesterday. He was in heaven! It was actually a pretty sweet place to check out, even though I'm not way into motorcycles. Only down side now is that Jared is set on getting one in the future, we'll see about that. I am slightly obsessed with the show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" (a.k.a Triple D) that's on the Food Network and I got my parents hooked on it a few months ago. There is this little diner in Milwaukee that was on the show, so we decided to check it out after the museum. It was pretty good and my parents thought it was cool to hit up a Triple D joint! Anyway, it was really nice to have them visit us, even though it was too short and it makes me miss all the rest of our family even more now. 

We spent Labor Day in Milwaukee. We went to the Art Museum and to the 

top of a cool lighthouse among other activities.

I decided to chop off a few inches of hair last month

His winter riding gear

A couple of weeks ago, some of my friends ran and finished a marathon

on a morning of 15 mph wind, rain and sub 40 temperatures, they were amazing!

Out to lunch with Oma!

The Harley Museum

Some of the engines on display

Different paint schemes

Haha, the mini bike! Our nephews would love cruising

on this little thing!

Captain America Bike!

At the end of the tour, they had a bunch of motorcycles you could sit on

Haha, an early scooter version of a Harley!

I'd take this hot pink ride haha

On the old man trike bike :)

In your dreams baby

August

Well the summer is winding down out here, which is a good thing and a bad thing. It's a bad thing because I've really enjoyed having a relaxing summer to recover from my grad program, plus it's been nice having no obligations and being able to do whatever I want, when I want. It's a good thing because I'm ready for something new. I'm excited to start my job and to meet new students. I never thought I would admit this in a million years, but a bunch of friends have been talking about going back to school lately and it's really weird knowing that I'm not going back to BYU this semester, I might actually it miss it a little (other than the thesis writing, homework doing, finals studying etc.) Anyway, here's an update in pictures of this past month. 

Olympics. . . all day, everyday

I got my haircut again and the girl convinced me to grow out my bangs, something about longer "fringe" being better for my face shape, blah blah. I'm trying to decide what to do, they are kind of driving me crazy at the moment. This pic is on a great day, if my bangs looked like that everyday and stayed out of my eyes I'd be fine with it, but my hair skills are terrible, so I end up pulling them back 99% of the time. Okay I'm done with hair venting. . . 

We got "volunteered" to take the youth down to the Chicago Temple. I'd like to think it's because we are cool and the kids think we are awesome, but it's really because we are the only couple in our ward who don't have kids of our own! It was a fun trip though, we'd never been there before, so it was nice to get a chance to go.

Trek has a big trade show every year in Madison where they show off all of their new bikes. These are the spaces Jared designed for it. It's been a learning experience for Jared in how marketing and design functions from an organizational standpoint when working for a big company like Trek, but I think he was pretty happy with how this project turned out. He was able to push through more of his own ideas, and hopefully the higher ups are starting to realize he is capable of showcasing the brand effectively, and that he really knows what he's doing, even if he's only been out of school for a year.  

I've been hanging out with my friend Char and her kids quite a bit this summer, another perk of having so much free time. I told her I've adopted them as our nieces and nephews since ours are so far away. Her oldest son Tyler is obsessed with sports, my kind of kid. Jared and I played Bocce Ball with him and his little brother Jaden last week, and I went over and played basketball with him this week, good times! I found out that Jaden, is obsessed with all things Legos. I told him Jared has a box of old Legos (thank you Carolyn for forcing us to take those off your hands when we moved! haha) and that I'd take some over for him to play with. We have been BFFs ever since, and he affectionately calls me his "lego buddy" now haha. Then her youngest Kambree thinks I'm the greatest babysitter around because we make playdough, watercolor and do nail polish. Fun kids!

Jared was inspired by Jaden's Lego obsession one afternoon

We decided to brave the hoards of teenagers and go to the fair 

so I could get a funnel cake and corndog, definitely worth it!

Our nephew Cole had his birthday a few weeks ago, so Jared was able to hook his parents up with a good deal on a bike. This was the pic Heidi sent us, she said he was pretty excited about it! Jared is already corrupting the young minds, this will be our own kid in another ten years or so!

And this is an old random pic I found and posted it 1) because Jared is hot 

2) because it was taken in my friend Dana's neighborhood and I miss her and the twins!!

Overall, things out here are still good. Some days are better than others. Obviously we miss our family and friends and wish we didn't live so far away, but we are happy and just taking things day by day.

Cleveland Weekend

This past weekend we spent several days in Cleveland with my extended family and luckily my mom was there visiting too. I haven't been out there in about 6 years and Jared hadn't met most of my family there so we thought it was a perfect opportunity to go now that we are in Wisconsin and it's only a drive away. For the most part we just hung out with everyone and didn't do a whole lot other then eat delicious food, but that was okay by us!

We visited the West Side Market, awesome food!

I got this huge crepe!

The house I grew up in, still looks the same

I got to see my best friend Addie, we were inseparable as kids!

I learned that colored pants are definitely not as popular on the 

east coast as compared to the west coast

Jared loved hanging out with my Oma's dog Scottie

He got new cycling glasses, he looks like Cyclops!

He was put to work doing "man projects"

My mom and her best friend, my "Aunt" Sally

My cousin Chris let Jared take his brand new 

Porsche 911 Carrera 4S for a little joy ride!

This was his face when he got back, perma grin for the rest of the night!

We went to the Cleveland Zoo one day

Cute little baby monkey!

My cousin Jess and I made some delicious tamales, 

pretty good for first timers!

With Jess

We were sad to have just missed meeting Jess' husband Mike, 

who has been at officer's training the past couple months.

With our Oma

My Oma and Te-Te decided I don't buy Jared enough treats

so this is what they sent us home with! (Not to mention a cooler full of food!)

It was a great time and we loved hanging out with everybody, thanks Oma for letting us crash your place! Thanks Tet for always making sure we were stuffed to the bone, I'm still trying to recover from the food intake!