February 2011- Valentine's & Lotsa Bball

We enjoyed starting off the month with Ashley’s baptism.  She looked so lovely and it was a great day!  We felt lucky that we were invited to give the talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost.  We have been thick in to the basketball season.  We are die-hard Aggie fans and were very happy to rush the court after beating Idaho and winning the WAC regular season for the fourth year in a row!  The Aggie bracket-buster game against St. Mary’s was also a definite highlight that was an emotional roller coaster of a game that ended positively;) We have also had fun watching Scott and his team do well in their Jr. Jazz games.  Jake has had fun being involved with our ward’s church ball team that plays on Saturday mornings.

We enjoyed listening to Elder Ballard speak at the annual Joseph Smith Fireside that was held at the spectrum.  We also had fun at a French party hosted by the Ambassadors and our ward’s chili cook off party!  Jake’s mom let me steal her mad white chicken chili recipe- and it was delicious! 

For Valentine’s Day we enjoyed a dinner at Element’s Restaurant and the Music Man, which was playing at the Ellen Eccles.  Other than that we’ve been keeping busy with the norm.  Jake is a hard working man putting in 50-55 hours a week doing taxes at his internship at Jones Simkins.  I am trying to keep my grounding despite any senior-itis that may try to creep on in.

We are thankful for the good family and friends we have and for the gospel.  Sending well wishes to everyone!

Peterson Christmas Letter, 2010

-THE PETERSONS-                                  

How fun it’s been reviewing my photos to refresh my memory of the events of the past year.  Jake and I have now been married for 53 weeks.  Yes, we celebrated our first year anniversary last week!  We’re so grateful for all the support we received from everyone who came to our wedding, sent cards, presents, called us on the phone, etc.  Thank you.  Our wedding day was more incredible than we could have ever imagined.  We often joke that we want to go back and do it all over againJ  We were privileged to gallivant to Manhattan and Palmyra, New York for our honeymoon.  We enjoyed the hustle and bustle of Manhattan at Christmas and then ended off the trip with the calm and sacred presence that is all about the LDS Church historical sites in Palmyra. 

Over spring break we took a trip to San Diego.  We spent most of the time visiting many of the families from Jake’s mission.  Their company was great and their cooking incredible!  We stuck pretty close to home with our other traveling ventures.  We treated ourselves to a couple days in St. George, including a day at Zions’ Park, as we had a weekend break between spring finals and the beginning of our summer semester.  We enjoyed many outings to Bear Lake with the Roskelleys and the Petersons during the summer, and a fall-break trip to Park City with the Petersons.  Through our traveling, we make an effort to do a session in a temple we haven’t been to before.  We call it “temple collecting.”  This past year we collected 10 different temples!

Now for the low down on our day-to-day lives.  Jake and I have finished most of our general business education classes.  Sadly that means that we no longer have classes together.  Jake is heavily into his accounting major, and I into my marketing major.  We both have one semester left in our undergraduate education.  In July, I started working at an internship that I will stay at through the end of the school year (working part-time).  I am doing marketing and public relations work for JJ Cole Collections- a baby products company.  Jake recently was accepted into a full-time internship program at Jones Simkins Accounting Firm.  He will be taking next semester off of school and working 40-60 hours a week doing taxes.  I am scheduled to graduate this May and he will graduate next December.  My plan is to hopefully find someplace that will take me on full time (fingers crossed) and Jake will likely continue on to get a Masters in Accounting from Utah State. 

We keep busy with church callings and participation in extracurricular activities at USU. Ironically enough, after being married for one week, we were called to be the Marriage and Family Relations Sunday School teachers in our ward. Due to a ward split, we have also been able to serve in a variety of other callings, including the Young Men, Young Women, Relief Society, and Elders Quorum. Recently, Jake became a member of Beta Alpha Psi, a really great accounting society/club. This year, I have continued to be involved with the University Ambassadors. We have also stayed busy serving as VPs over Huntsman Scholar Committees and being members of the Business School Ambassadors program. 

However, our favorite thing to do remains spending time with both of our families.  We love their enthusiasm and cheerfulness and love being involved in their lives.

We wish you a joyful Christmas season filled with family, friends, and the CHRISTmas spirit.

Love, Kristina & Jake Peterson

September 2010- Back to School

We love the fall!  Football games, falling leaves, General Conference, and Christmas music!!!  Christmas music, you say?  Well I (Jake) am diligently trying to persuade Kristina that Christmas music is permissible to listen to starting conference weekend, it’s an uphill battleJ  It certainly is the most wonderful time of the year!

September was wonderful!  We have been busier than ever with school.  Kristina finds a way to work at least 20 hours a week, stay involved in just about everything on campus, and still get an A on every single exam.  I greatly admire her diligence, work ethic, and passion for life.  That good Mortenson blood is certainly in her.  My stress levels have been sky rocketing with the upper division Accounting classes, recruiting season, work, young men’s activities, etc.  I need to exercise more to make sure my heart doesn’t stop.  However, I did receive an accounting internship at Jones Simkins, LLP here in Logan for the spring.  I will be taking a semester off of school while working 40-60 hours a week from January to May.  Hopefully it goes well.

Business Week was a couple of weeks ago on campus.  Kristina and I had the privilege of going to lunch with Ron Labrum, the CEO of Fenwal Blood Technologies, a large medical supplies company.  We were extremely impressed by him.  He has been very successful, but is still entirely humble.  He is currently a Stake President in the Chicago area.  Business Week brought other fun events including; Texas Roadhouse BBQ and concert on Old Main Hill, the Awards Banquet, free Aggie Ice Cream every day, and…the BYU vs USU game!!!  What a thriller!  We got to be part of the human tunnel for the players at the first of the game when they ran out of the locker room, and we were also some of the first to rush the field after the Aggies beat the Cougars.  It was a great feeling, and we love our Aggies!

We have loved being with family in September including the trip to the Real Salt Lake game, which seems like decades ago.  I have started following RSL and am becoming a big fan.  We also celebrated David’s birthday with a lunch at Elements, and Disney Scene It!  David is a Disney whiz, that’s for sure.  I was sure I knew more about Disney than anyone in Logan, but David is proving me wrong.  What a great brother-in-law I have. (Scott too, and Heather is the best sister-in-law I could ever ask for.)  Speaking of Heather, she did an awesome job at being a model for a Re-Design, Re-Fashion Fashion show for a fun class Kristina is taking to fulfill her depth humanities requirement.  She strutted the stage in front of 800 guests in an outfit made out of paper bags and cups from various fast food chains around Logan.

To top it off, we loved General Conference so, so much!  Even though it was in October, we still had to mention it.  Both of President Uchtdorf’s talks were my favorite, primarily because they both focused on things I greatly need to work on.  I also loved Elder Nelson’s in Priesthood, and Elder Eyring’s on Sunday.  Kristina loved President Packer’s, Uchtdorf’s, Monson’s, and many more.  We both felt the theme of the conference was “Follow the Prophet.”  We try to do that always and have strong testimonies of the gospel. 

I am so glad to be in such a fun family.  I love reading the newsletters and keeping up with everyone’s busy lives.  Keep up the good work, and have a wonderful October!

Jake and Kristina

August 2010- Summer Continues

August surely flew by too quickly, and what a fun month it was!  Jake finally ended his summer classes on the sixth; he was quite happy about that.  We went out to Mandarin Garden in celebration.  The next evening we enjoyed doing Initiatories for my first time as proxy work, then had a nice dinner with the Peterson’s at Elements, followed by The Sound of Music at the Ellen Eccles.  I’d only seen it previously as a movie, but it is definitely one of my favorite musicals now.

The following day Jake and I both left for Girls camp.  Jake was a priesthood representative for two of the days, while I stayed all four as my last responsibility in YW prior to the ward split.  The camp went very well and was lots of fun!  It was very different from the previous camps I had been to as a girl and not a leader.  The leaders at this camp outnumbered the girls.  We had two camp leaders, myself, and the two priesthood holders, and just four girls!  We stayed at a nice camp just an hour away, in Idaho.  We did the usual certification, crafts, devotionals, endless games, s’mores, testimony meeting, and hiked Minnetonka Cave.  I arrived back on the 13^th.  Jake and I recapped about the experience over Olive Garden’s delicious soup, salad, and breadsticks.  He then went to work, while I met my parents at the Cache County Fair and then went over to visit the fun Nyman family at grandma & grandpa’s!  It was a lot of fun to visit with them and see Kelly’s cute little baby bumpJ! 

The following day we went and played with the Roskelley’s on Bear Lake’s North Beach.  I don’t think I’d ever seen the beach so packed- I guess everyone was trying to squeeze in the fun the last free weekend before school started!  We had lots of fun playing sand volleyball and wave running.  The next day Scott was ordained a Teacher.  It was a very nice ordination followed by a yummy dinner with both grandparents.  On Monday, we met up with the Peterson’s and some other families for their annual boat-racing event!  We ate a yummy potluck dinner and then raced our homemade boats down the river running behind Logan High.  Some of the interesting items on these boats were: a Barbie, Mannequin Head, and a rubber ducky!  The boats were made out of anything and everything, from a plastic diaper tub, a baking tray, to a milk carton.  I’m not sure there was ever an official winner, but we sure had fun racing! 

On the 19^th we enjoyed a fun night out!  We “collected” our 10^th temple- the Bountiful Temple!  It is now one of my favorite temples; it is very gorgeous, especially the Celestial room!  We then had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  We went in reminiscence of my birthday dinner back in March.  For my birthday, we had gone to the Jordan River temple and then out to the Cheesecake Factory where Jake had presented me with two tickets to Lion King the musical for August!  So, needless to say, we then went to the musical following our dinner.  The costumes were absolutely incredible; they blew me away!  What a great, uplifting musical!

We enjoyed a fun surprise dinner for my uncle Kevin on the 20^th as well as attending Jake’s five-year class reunion at Adam’s park.  We had a great morning the following day, going horseback riding with grandpa Neal! Grandpa was great to teach us all about how to get the horses ready.  We went on a pretty trail up past Camp Lomia in Logan canyon. We had an enjoyable time on Chip and Lobo! 

On the 24^th, I had the fun opportunity to go to a cooking class at Hamilton’s with Jake’s mom and grandma.  We were instructed on how to make about 6 different items covering appetizers, entrees, and dessert.  We were given the recipes to each and were even able to eat each item as well! Yum, Yum!  The next day was our 1 year engagement anniversary.  We had exchanged presents a few days prior to our anniversary, because on the day of I worked during the morning and at noon we left for my yearly USU Ambassador retreat.  Since we celebrated our anniversary ahead of time, I was very unsuspecting when I showed up to work and found a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses and a Symphony candy bar on my desk!  It was a lovely surprise!  As for the retreat… we started it off with sandwiches at First Dam, and then played group games on the beach at Bear Lake, enjoyed Café Sabor for dinner, followed by some more fun games.  Spouses headed home later that evening as the next day was just filled with going over our responsibilities and the year overview. 

On Friday of that week, we went to the Logan High Football game to watch Heather dance at half time as part of the Hi-lo mini-clinic.  She was very cute out there “busting a move!”  The game was also very exhilarating.  Logan High won in double over time.  That weekend, I also (FINALLY) finished my Levi quilt I had been working on for eternity.  Now I have that checked off my bucket list and won’t ever have to do another one (right)?  For some reason, I’m sure I’ll get sucked back into it again!  It is fun to see the finished product, though! To make the most of our siblings last bits of “freedom!” we had a fun night with them the night before their school started.  We went mini golfing and then had slushies afterward.

School is back in session and we feel as busy as ever… just as most of you!  Happy September!                                     Love, Kristina & Jake

*I have included a poem that Jake wrote in his spare time to express enthusiasm for his favorite time of year… Autumn!
                                                                              ACT II

The summer cast is at the curtain,
Here comes the final bow.
With the sunburns a hurtin’.
The memories certain,
It’s time they leave us now.

The boats and the cabins,
The wild chuck wagons,
Now seem so long in the past.
The grills and the kites,
The late starry nights,
They came and they left so fast.

Although it seems sad,
It’s not all that bad.
Don’t cry or shed a tear.
The curtain once closed,
Now is exposed.
The autumn and winter casts are here.

From the leaves that fall,
The heroic football,
To the Christmas lights so bright.
The school year has come,
Now no more hum drum.
I’m thinking it will be all right.

June 2010, Doesn't Seem Like Summer

Dear Family,

Well this is the second time I’m writing this, as my computer deleted the first one after I had completely finished it.

June can basically be summed up by one word: School.  We longed for summer this past month.  Technically it was here, but it sure didn’t feel like it was, as we were stuck inside studying all day.  We finished our first summer semester on June 11.  We then started right back into another semester and just finished this past Friday (July 9).  These summer classes are nice, as you can knock out classes in just 4 weeks, however they do keep you busy!  Every day is equivalent to a week in a normal semester.  Jake is taking twelve credits this summer (he has four more weeks of schoolL as he is taking 12 credits.  I am done with school for two months as I only took 6 credits.)  Taking these summer classes makes is so we can both graduate this May!

Our sixth month anniversary was June eleventh.  We had finals that day (Jake two and I one) and then worked, went to dinner with the Roskelley side, and then to the adult session of Stake Conference.  I had planned to do something big and fun for the day, but we just had too much going on.  So, the following night we enjoyed a little treat I made, and some sparkling cider on the floor of the family room amidst candle light (so (almost) incredibly romantic, I know).  We did love being able to go to the adult session for the first time.  It was especially amazing and we enjoyed having a spiritually rejuvenating weekend!   A couple of weeks ago, we also had a fun ward party up the canyon at Camp Lomia.  We enjoyed hamburgers and fixins, a Fourth of July themed devotional, and dutch oven cobbler.

I started doing some work for my Franklin Covey Internship from home these past two weeks.  I am working in the Education Sector of the company.  They have a really neat program called “The Leader In Me” that has now been implemented in over 215 schools across the globe.  I am so impressed with the program.  It is based off of Dr. Covey’s 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People.  It truly is an amazing, transformation program!  If you ever have spare time, you can check it out at http://www.theleaderinme.org/.  (The videos on the first page sum up the idea quite nicely.)  Happy July! Love, Kristina & Jake

January & February 2010

Dear Family,

The snow is finally melting in the valley, and oh how we are looking forward to spring!  However, we did enjoy a good past weekend at Beaver Mountain.  It was a great Saturday as we enjoyed a half day of sunny skiing, working in the evening, and still being able to attend the Aggie Basketball ESPN Bracket-buster game as it didn’t start until ten that night.  The Aggies have really picked it up this last little while and are on a 12 game winning streak and have the best three point shooting percentage in the nation.  We love the Aggies!

Jake and I are just keeping busy with the usual.  We are both taking 15 credits and are lucky enough to have three of our five classes together- friendly competition;)  Jake is working at Domino’s delivering pizzas and I am working at Hamilton’s Steak & Seafood.  I have the great opportunity of being involved with the Koch Scholar’s program this semester.  Jake was able to participate in it a year ago and loved it.  15 students from the university in all different majors are chosen each semester.  We read a book a week, write a Blog post on a question posed by the professors, and then come together every Wednesday night for two hours to have dinner and talk about the writings of some of the great philosophers, economists, and writers.  Some of the writings we are reading are those of Locke, Rousseau, Aristotle, Smith, Bastiat, Hayek, and Schumpeter.  It is a great learning opportunity that emphasizes conceptualizing and forming your own political and economical ideas.

Jake and I are also co-teaching the Marriage and Family Relations class each week in our ward.  Our ward is very unique as there are 115 kids between the ages of 0-18 months and there are also 4 nurseries for the little ones that are a bit older.  Needless to say, we are about the only ones in the entire ward without children and the newest of the newly weds.  It was a bit humorous as they called us to teach this class, which includes 8 weeks on marriage relations & 8 weeks on parenting- both topics of which we are so very experienced with!  We love learning and teaching together.

We had a great Valentine’s Day.  We went shopping for each other for our “day date” and each got some things we have had on our “want” lists for a while.  Afterward, we went to a restaurant we had never been to before called Kamin Thai Cuisine.  It was absolutely delicious.  Jake surprised me and had roses and a present sitting on the table when we arrived.  They set us in our own private room.  The funny part about it was that these cute little Thai people would shut the door every time they left and then knock again and wait for a bit before re-entering!  I guess they were trying to make it as romantic as possible!

Our new favorite treats are Aebleskivers- a Danish type pancake treat!  Grandma was nice enough to let us borrow her pan, so we would have two to make them in for an Aebliskiver party we had with some friends.  If you haven’t tried this wonderful treat, we would highly suggest it! However, you do have to have an Aebliskiver pan to make them.

We hope everyone is having a good start to the New Year!

Love,

Kristina & Jake Peterson