Goodbye, Our Fine Furry Friend

Yesterday was the big day. After almost 4 years with Terris, we decided that the one-bedroom apartment life (with no yard) was not going to work. It was harder to give her up than we thought, but we are comfortable with her new owners--Aaron's family--and know she will have a good life.

Thursday we did a "tricks photo shoot." In about 10 min, I took 89 pictures. Here are a few of our favorites:

"Sit and stay." We're aware that every dog can do this, but Terris will seriously sit and stay forever, even if she has food right in front of her.

"Beg." Thankfully, the only times she did this was when we told her to.

"Stand." This trick was my favorite to watch. I felt like I was at a circus.

"Shake."

"High Five."

"Let me see your toe-toes." When Terris was an inside dog, she often came into the house muddy. Brady started saying this to her so he could clean off her paws before she ruined the floors.

"Crawl." This trick took her forever to learn, but now she can crawl all the way across the yard without standing up.

"Find it." Brady would often hide treats in our house, and later our yard, and make Terris sniff them out. She was pretty funny to watch, drooling all over the place. The treat she is sniffing out is in the branches.

Here's just a few more pictures for closure.

Things we'll miss: nightly walks, her crazy (although rarely heard) moan-of-a-bark, running with her, taking her to BBQs and to the park, playing catch, feeding her, petting her, wrestling with her, camping with her, and basically just thinking about her during the day.

Of course I could make a list of things we won't miss (like finding a dog-sitter every time we want to get out of town), but that seems a little wrong right now.

I guess we have to think of a new title for our blog...

The True Meaning of Easter

Yesterday, Brady and I, Roni and Coleman, and Coleman's parents got together for our traditional Easter Egg Derby. The derby involves a NCAA style tourney of competing eggs. To participate in your own derby, follow these steps:

1. Boil your eggs. Unfortunately, despite great care for this instruction, some of our eggs ended up a little mushy inside. They made quite a splatter on contact.

2. Decorate your eggs. This year, Coleman's mom taught us to use rubber bands.

3. Rank your eggs based entirely on looks. This year, Brady's egg won (see "Stripes" above), and was seeded as a #1 pick.

4. Sit across a short table, and push your eggs together. A scientific law states that only one egg will break on contact (unless they aren't actually hard-boiled, in which case they will splatter egg guts all over the table). The egg that does not break goes on to the next round.

5. Declare a champion. Here is the picture from the championship match between me and Coleman's dad. After never making it to a second-round, I actually took the title! We renamed my egg "Cinderella."

6. Enjoy a hearty feast of egg salad sandwiches, fruit, freshly squeezed strawberry lemonade, and the best chocolate cake we've ever tasted.

The Most Expensive Brownie We've Ever Had

And no, we aren't into "special brownies."

Tonight we went to Matt and Emily's for brownies as sort of a last family hangout. Unfortunately we did not double-check the signs, and parked in a tenant space instead of a guest space (one space short of guest parking). $121 later, we retrieved our Altima.

You know, this sort of thing wouldn't be as irritating if it was the first time. Sadly, though, it is not. When Brady and I were dating, Brady was towed from his OWN COMPLEX. Then it was only an $80 blow. We were told that the raise in prices was due to "higher gas prices." I'd say!

Just One More Reason to Avoid Chiropractors

Check out this kookie fellow:

Chiropractor Claims to Travel Through Time

Pink Ribbon Month

Today in class, we were talking about the common types of cancer, their characteristics, etc. This day requires a bit of maturity from students, as we discuss a few sensitive topics (i.e. breast and prostate cancer). However, I couldn't get mad about the snickering after my slip-up in class.

On my PowerPoint, I had a picture of a pink ribbon next to some of the risk factors for breast cancer. One student in the back asked, "What does a pink ribbon have to do with breast cancer?"

My response? "It's for Breast Awareness Month."

Unfortunately, I didn't catch myself the first time. A student asked, "For what month?"

My response again: "For October--Breast Awareness Month."

Oops. It was pretty funny, I have to say, when I finally caught up with the rest of the class. I told them I'd probably be fired for laughing along with them.

Lunch with Chad Lewis

This past week I had the priviledge of eating lunch with Tight End Chad Lewis. It turns out his brother owns a construction company and they both visited the BYU Construction Management students. He sat directly across from me at lunch and we spent a good hour in conversation. We spent some time talking about his foot injury that occured on the game winning touchdown that led the Eagles to the Super Bowl last year. We also discussed everthing from his football future to his many stories of T.O. Chad will be a free agent this coming season. He tried to recruit me to play for the NFL, but I had to turn him down because I already accepted a job. If only he would have asked sooner.

Choking

Well, our bragging has been put to rest.

We have had our hopes a bit smashed. Our little Escort--which we have constantly praised--had it's first major repairs. It simply wouldn't start. $400 later, it is working nicely. (Although we have to point out that on the books, it's worth about $500 right now.) Maybe we should follow Cory and Kristen's lead and ditch it for bigger and better...

On the same day, BYU lost to Utah--again. It seems that under Utah pressure, our teams cannot pull it together. This is the first game this season we have lost when we were ahead with 5 min left to play.


Incidentally, we saw Keena Young when we went out to eat on Friday night. We wanted to comment that we had planned to watch him that night on ESPN, and not at a food joint. We certainly can't be ticked with him, though, considering that he played well.

Hi Mom!

This has been one of those weeks when you forget that you have homework(although I have not forgotten that I graduate in two months). We have loved having Mom around. Aside from spoiling us rotten, Mom has made the most of her trip to Utah. We cheered BYU basketball and volleyball teams to victories, we had several family dinners, and Karen and I continually tried to convince Mom to move out here permanently.
To fascinate Mom with the beauty of Utah county, we decided to take her to Sundance. As you can see from the beautiful trees directly behind us, the scenery was breath-taking(literally). We took pictures anyway......
then decided to take pictures of things more visually pleasing.

The following is Terris's reaction to seeing mom for the first time during her trip. She could hardly wipe the smile off her face.

Terris decided it necessary to show off every one of her skillz to Mom during her visit. The following picture demonstrates our dog's "snoutin' grab" trick.

Taking Time Off

Brady and I both took off our separate ways these past two weeks...Brady to Reno for a construction competition, and me to Idaho with the track team. Brady's team finished 3rd, and my team had a finalists/medalists in every major category--field events, distance, and sprints.



It's fun to have good athletes on your team. We have a pair of twins that are cleaning up in Utah--they basically have records in every sprint category for outdoor and indoor track. Obviously, times are slower with indoor, but you (I guess I'm just suggesting this to Kristen, unless anyone else is interested) can check them out here: 2006 Utah Wrap-Up. Not to sound racist, but they were pretty much the only white girls that made it to finals. I can't take any credit for their talent, but they are both in my health and fitness classes, so maybe the way they eat has impacted their performance?! Just kidding... My athlete is Todd Davis, who took 4th in high jump. I trained him from day one, so I can at least feel that I contributed a bit. hehe If he had jumped his best, he would have been 3rd, but oh well.

We're home again until the end of March, when I take off for St. George with track, and then we both jet to Cali for the weekend to find a job (for me) and hopefully housing.

A Couple of Ski Bums

The beautiful Alta Ski Resort. This is how it looked as we pulled up Saturday Morning.

Once we were geared up we were ready hit the slopes.....literally. Due to my highly uncoordinated 'skillz' at skiiing I determined it was best not to bring the camera along for action shots. So enjoy our before and after shots.

You can really tell the difference between people who ski a lot, and people who go once a season. We'll let you guess what category we fit into after we describe our getup: underwear, long johns, pajama pants, and track pants (non-padded, and straight from high school...). On top: 2 long sleeve shirts, sweatshirt, and over-sized coat. Not to mention the rented ski goggles, poles, and skis. We look nothing like the Ritchie boys...

It started snowing HARD about halfway through the day. We could hardly see while driving down the mountain. Apparently other people had trouble seeing us, too. Today we found that we'd been hit on our front bumper, and it's either from church (See "The Sure Way to Hell") or the slopes.

Snowshoes, Ice Down the Pants, the Whole Bit

As you all know, I get ants in my pants when we don't have anything "special" planned over holidays. So, Brady was considerate enough to get work off, and we went snowshoeing. It was my first time. Here I am standing. I put this picture in so that you know that I was standing for at least part of the day.

Here I am with my sister Natalie, who brought her friend Tyler with her. They were a ton of fun. Natalie turned out to be significantly better at this than I was.


Case in point... This is one of about 20 times I landed on my bum after a quick decent down a hill.


The boys found a really sweet hill to jump off. It only took me three times (haha.."only") to get the jumping down, and avoid just sliding down (with the snow jamming up my back!).


Here's Natalie: she got it on her first go.


Brady was actually the first to jump off. The pic doesn't do him justice. He was pretty fun to watch.


This is Tyler, who gets the award for "best action shot."

Tyler and Brady found a frozen waterfall, and decided that we could handle the haul up the mountain. The snow was fresh, so the snowshoes didn't handle it all that well. As a result, we were thigh-deep in snow half the time. The boys made it fine, but Natalie and I spent a lot of time in the snow, rather than on top of the snow. It took some real determination, but we made it. Truth be told, I finally only finished climbing because Natalie did. That competitiveness really kicked in, despite having taken MANY falls down the mountain. (And I know that picture doesn't look like a mountain, but it's just a bad angle...)
The top! I was huffing and puffing.

Here's a picture from the parking lot. I'd like you to believe that we hiked to the top of that mountain.

Dog Parka

We had some friends that were motivated to walk their dog everyday because they were afraid of being one of those owners who looks like their dog. You know, fat owners have fat dogs, rich owners have floofy dogs (and yes, that is a word in my vocab), 80's women have poodles, short and stubby men have Basset Hounds, you know the drill.

Well, we are proud of our dog...especially with her new dog parka. We wouldn't mind looking as cute as her.

Monster Truck Rally

We never would have paid money, but we were invited and given free tickets. I was glad we bought ear plugs. Here is a sampling of some big trucks and crazy motorcyclists.


My personal favorite........The Terminator.

This was one of 4 trucks that tipped during the event.

We compiled a list of the types of people who attend these events. You can make generalizations based on this list:

1. Guys with fancy mohawks.

2. Men wearing cowboy hats with feathers sticking out of them.

3. Young dads with missing teeth.

4. Hoochies. Lots of them.

5. Girls that still thinking glitter is cool.

6. Babies covering their ears.

7. Women who get those long fingernails...ick.

8. And of course, lots of people completely smashed.

We know what you're thinking...we fit right in!

Time to Get Out of Spanish Fork?!?

Several people have commented on my "accent" since getting back from Ohio/Michigan. This is pretty typical--not the first time. No comments were quite so dramatic as a few kids in my fifth period.

A few students said to me, "Ms. Edwards, you went home for Christmas, didn't you?"

I answered that I had.

The reply? "I thought you had a Middle Eastern accent!"

Yikes.

Christmas 2005

C aroling, Christmas Eve, and remembering Christ.

H angin' out with family.

R est & relaxation. Cory sported his new eye-mask complete with eyelash protection and nose relief. We refer to it as the "face bra".


I nflatable Mattress -- Due to the creativity of Mom and Dad Nufer, Karen and I had our own room with comfortable sleeping accomodations....a difficult task in house full of people.

S ports. While vacationing we found time play ping pong, bowling, and a healthy amount of Tetris. Dad Nufer placed first in ping pong and bowling. Matt scored the all-time highest record in Tetris with 423 lines.

T urbulance during our flight to Columbus, Ohio. The flight attendants were asked by the pilot to discontinue the beverage service and put their seat-belts on. Then we hit it.....the worst turbulence I have ever experienced. Not one person could contain their drinks or their screams. After a grueling 15 seconds of being tossed around I sat in shock, dripping with orange juice, ginger ale, coke, etc. Karen immediately burst into laughter which caused the entire plane to erupt in laughter. I, on the other hand, continued to remain in shock for the rest of the flight.

M ichigan with Mom and Dad Edwards. Karen and I, Ryan, Cory and Kristen Fam enjoyed our visit to Lansing, MI. Among great food and entertainment, we also kept Mom and Dad up late...ie...etc.

A nna "flexing" & other entertaining moments from the kids. Anna demonstrated to us that when you want to flex, you have to make your body shiver.

S ilent Night. Christmas Eve was a memorable night. We each suited up in our various roles and performed a unique rendition of the nativity.


B aptism -- Janece was baptized on December 23. She was so excited, even though the water was ice-cold.
R ocking in 2006! Chinese, games, you know the drill. We got tired early so Dad set the clock a half hour ahead and we celebrated the new year at 11:30 pm. Hey--the kids didn't know the difference! Karen and I had a Tetris competition. I am currently the champion with 209 lines.

E ating, eating, and eating.
A ttacking the Christmas pile which was organized by name, thanks to Ada.
K icking back with friends