Playing Catch Up....Once Again :)

I'm pretty sure it safe to say that I've failed the last few months, well 5 to be exact, at keeping up with this blog of mine. A ton has happened and I'm sure I'll forget something along the way.

Since my last post I think I've had my 22nd birthday. Daniel was such a sweetheart and bought me a wonderful sewing machine, and I am happy to say has been put to VERY good use since its arrival in our home. That story has to do with some other happenings in the last few months.

For spring break we went to Vegas with Daniel's family and had SO much fun. it was my first time ever being on the strip and oh what an experience that was! All the late nights and lights were very entertaining. We stayed in an amazing condo with the whole family. We went the "The Tournament of the Kings" show in the Excalibur. It was loads of fun! In the Excalibur they had this stand where you could go "pearl fishing." This consisted of choosing an oyster, tapping on the shell three times to "welcome it" to the world (per Hawaiian customs), and opening it to find our treasure. I really wanted to try it so Daniel decided that this adventure could be my early Easter present. We made out like bandits! The first pearl that I got was rather large according to the man running the stand, and also a very pretty pink. We bought a necklace setting to put it in and the guy threw in two more pearls. The next two were smaller but both equally beautiful in color. We did a LOT of walking around to get our sight seeing done. We weren't going to try to attempt driving in all that chaos, so we took the condo shuttle to get to the strip. Daniel, his sister Korrine, and I rode the roller coaster at New York New York that was a thrill all on its own. Eventually we made the journey down to Fremont street to see the crowds and the LED ceiling show. (I have no idea what else to call it, lol) There was also this amazing spray paint artist that was amazingly talented. We went to the Coke and M&M stores. We tried the Coke products from around the world. Some were good and others were completely disgusting!We visited the Hoover Dam and took a train ride with the nephews. The weather was warm and definitely a nice break from the snow storm we left in Laramie that week!

Making it through the rest of the semester seemed to take forever, but it happened all the same. I managed to pull out another 4.0 semester GPA and was very excited by that fact. I also graduated Institute which was an awesome surprise at the end of the school year. I had no idea I was close to finishing it up! We had to make the hard decision of paying rent at two apartments because we got accepted into the Rainbow Vista Apartments. The new apartment would have two rooms, a better environment and pretty much everything nicer than our lovely Harney St Apartment. Not to mention that it's subsidized. We had to take it right then or it wouldn't have been ours. It really wasn't much of a decision, but more of an issue of having to finish out our lease on Harney St while paying for our new place. Paying for two places sucks. Money was a little tight, but we made it and couldn't be happier! Now if we could just get our old landlords to send our security deposit back.....things would be great. We've got our new apartment all decorated and plan on being here until we can get finished up with our college degrees!

This summer seemed pretty long because Daniel and I spent a lot of time apart since he was working and going to school in Laramie, while I was getting all the shifts I could get over in Pinedale and Big Piney. Lots of traveling made for long days. We did get to do a few fun things this summer whenever we could our schedules to mesh nicely. We went fishing quite a bit with Rustie and Rowdy, went down to the Ft. Collins drive in movie a couple of times (we highly recommend it), hung out at the Carnival for Jubilee days, and even made a trip down to Denver Six Flags Elitch Gardens with Kolton, Amanda, and Tylie. The Sorensens ( Clint, Becca, Shawn, Daniel and I) ran the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay and pushed ourselves to some new limits. Needless to say we were all in pain after everything was said and done, but it was well worth it. Hopefully we can do it again next year. Somewhere in here was some adventures involving Cheyenne Frontier Days. I got to go over and work the Kevin Costner (yes the actor) and Darius Rucker concerts. They both put on pretty great performances. Hopefully I can work more of them next year!

Speaking of races I ran the Oyster Shooter down in Denver with two amazing ladies this last weekend! Angie Taff and Olivia Petersen are studs! They could probably kick my trash any day. Their in great shape. The race took place in about a 5 mile radius of our starting point at the Denver aquarium. It was an Amazing Race type of course. We had to go around and complete different tasks before moving onto the next obstacle. The only downside was how stinking hot it was....93 degrees to be exact! Talk about dehydration by the time we got done even with all the water we downed throughout the ordeal.

Matt, my brother, and his wife Jessie got sealed to their sweet little son Dean Matthew Aug 13th. It was a great day to spend at the Idaho Falls temple surrounded by family and friends. Little Dean is the first grand baby on the McGinnis side of the family and he joined us July 19, 2011. He was 4 lbs and 17.5 inches long. Very exciting!  Now the family is looking at Daniel and I thinking, "OK it's your guys turn now." Silly family :) In all honesty, after holding that precious little one, you can only want one of your own. We'll see what life brings our way.

This is where my sewing machine story comes in. I took up making jean quilts. I started small with a couple baby blankets. One for my Dean and another for our friends Rustie and Rowdy's baby Janaina Sage. They turned out really good and I'll upgrade sometime soon to trying to make something a little bigger. Deans blanket was made out of his Grandpa McGinnis' wranglers and Sage's was made out of her dad's Carhartt jeans. So it added a little sentimental value to each blanket that was made with love :)

School has started and things are running pretty smoothly for both Daniel and I. We'll see what fun this semester brings!! We're both working as Computer lab assistants. Daniel is still working at McDonalds and is waiting to hear about a possible internship and Farm Bureau. I just called as the CTR 5 teacher in primary and this next Sunday will be the first Sunday I teach. It will be a great new adventure and hopefully the kids like me.

The plan is to keep everything up to date much better then I have been. So bring on the semester!