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!

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.

May 2010- School's Out, So Let's Shout!

Dear Family,

On Saturday I got sunburned just from teaching three hours of tennis lessons, and this is actually good news.  After what seems like rain everyday in May, I think summer might make it to Logan after all!

We had finals week the first week of May and were both glad to get that over with.  We worked really hard in our classes this semester and were both able to pull of 4.0s. 

As celebration, we headed down to St. George to spend some relaxing time at Grandma and Grandpa’s beautiful new home for the one free week we had between finals and summer semester starting.  We were only there a few days, but it was a perfect little get away.  We relaxed at the home, enjoyed the hot tub, watched some disappointing Jazz games, and enjoyed eating out.  We also continued on with our “temple collecting” by attending a session in the St. George temple, making it the ninth temple we’ve attended while being married!  We’re so lucky to live so close to so many of them!

The highlight of the trip was going to Zion’s National Park.  We both hadn’t been there before, or at least didn’t remember having ever been.  We spent a full day in the park and hiked 3 different trails.  The first trail we hiked took us to some waterfalls.  We hiked to the lower and middle falls.  They were very beautiful.  It was about a 3 mile hike round trip.  We then took a short 1-mile hike, which was more like a walk, along the river, which lead us to the end of the canyon, at the head of the Narrows.  We wanted to hike the Narrows, which really means forging the river through the canyon walls; however, the canyon was closed due to high levels of water.  To end off our day we went on what is said to be the most dangerous hike at Zion’s- Angel’s Landing.  It was a 5 mile hike and was a “nice” hike for 4 of the 5 miles.  The last ½ mile up and then back was quite another story.  We were gripping on to chains basically the entire time just trying to stay on the mountain.  It reminded us a lot of hiking Wayna Picchu at Macchu Picchu in Peru last summer.  It wasn’t as bad as it appeared to be when starting out, but definitely not something for little ones.  The view at the top was spectacular.  It was gorgeous to be overlooking all of Zion’s canyon.

May was also filled with celebrations.  Jake’s sisters Meghan and Colie, had birthdays, followed by both my mom’s and dad’s birthdays, our cousin, Dan Seamon’s wedding, and mother’s day!  We were able to go to my home ward to watch Heather sing for Mother’s day.  I am surely grateful for mothers.  I told my mom I don’t know how she keeps the house clean, because I can barely do it with just Jake and I!

This past month I was accepted for a marketing internship with the Franklin Covey organization in Salt Lake City.  They are being very flexible with me and I will be doing some work at home until my summer school is over, come July 9.  Then I will be working about 20 hours a week partly from home and also in SLC. 

We also enjoyed going to Heather’s end-of-year dance review.  She sure is a star on the stage!  She had to have been the cutest one up there, and that is not just because I’m bias;)  She was smiling and sticking every move!  Heather and Scott also both finished up soccer.  They had great seasons, and we enjoyed watching their games, which lucky for us, were at a park only a few minutes from our place.  Scott’s team made it to the championship game.  The game was full of rivalry and about gave Jake and I both heart attacks.  We get a little too into games, to say the least, and this game was one incredible game!  A goal at the second half buzzer, and then a goal at the over time buzzer, sent the championship game into a PK shoot out.  Scott’s team did excellent and won the shoot out 4-2. 

Jake and I have one more week until we finish our first summer semester of classes.  The following week we start up our second semester.  After which I will be done, and then Jake will be taking a subsequent semester, and will wind up at the end of July.

We hope everyone is happy and healthy!            

  

Love,

Kristina & Jake Peterson