July 2010- Time For Some Summa' Fun!

Dear Family,

I’d like to start off with a disclaimer.  I am sorry that our newsletters are always lengthy.  I don’t expect you to actually read everything.  It’s just that this is the only journaling we do, so I try to make it somewhat thorough.  Feel free to skimJ

 We started the month off with a fun night with Jake’s parents.  We went to dinner at Tandoori Oven (Indian Food!) and went to a Peter Cetera (Chicago lead singer) concert at USU.  The concert was spectacular!  It started off with patriotic songs sung by the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra (conducted by Craig Jessop).  Peter Cetera then came on and continued to light up the concert hall!  I was surprised to find out that many of the older, classic songs I knew, were actually his songs!  The following day, July 2, we skipped class in order to attend Jake’s best friend’s entire day of wedding festivities.  Following that fun, we watched the Logan Fireworks.  The next morning, the Peterson’s had their annual neighborhood 4 of July breakfast.  We had fun helping keep all the delicious food stocked for over 200 people!  Following the breakfast, Heather and I headed down with the Petersons to Stadium of Fire in Provo.  Heather was my date for the day, as Jake unfortunately couldn’t get off work.  I had never been to Stadium of Fire.  I was blown away.  The entertainment, program, and fireworks were absolutely incredible!  I highly recommend it.  The crazy week didn’t stop there!  After church on Sunday, we ventured over to Bear Lake to spend time with my family, Dave and Jen’s family, and Grandma and Grandpa.  We also hit up a round of golf on Monday morning.

Then it was back to school for the last week of our second semester.  Jake had to continue on, but luckily I ended class that Friday.   I was thrilled to find out the last week of classes that I had been offered a job I had been working the last 2-3 months to get!  I am working at JJ COLE COLLECTIONS right here in Logan.  I work 20 hours a week and have now worked there a month.  I had worked in the food industry, and truly done it all- fast food, catering, dining- since I was 16, and I am surely glad to be done with that!  My job is Marketing/PR manager and I absolutely love it.  JJ COLE is a baby products company.  We design and distribute our products mainly to retailers, but do have a customer web site as well.  Our products are primarily in stores in the US and Europe.  Some of the big names we distribute to, are: Babies R Us, Nordstrom, Target (online), Buy Buy Baby and hundreds of others.  I took over for a full time employee.  The goal is to work 20 hours during the school year and then hopefully have a full time position once I graduate!  I hope I don’t mess anything up to big and that the company still wants me to go full time.  It would be really great, as Jake will be staying at USU to get his MACC.  Jake keeps hoping my job will make me baby hungry, maybe someday, but it hasn’t quite hit me yet!;)

On July 8, we had a family celebration for Bill’s (Jake’s dad’s) 50^th .   The Peterson’s favorite saying is always something to do with a monkey- ie: that’s crazier/ funnier than a monkey!  So, in honor, we gave him a monkey present.  It included a monkey card, talking stuffed monkey, bananas, a homemade “50’s Older Than a Monkey!” t-shirt and matching hat!  Two days following the family party, there was a surprise Neighborhood/Friend party at Café Sabor.  Boy, did we surprise him!

I was able to go down for my internship, to the Franklin Covey offices in Salt Lake.  It was fun to get a better feel of how the company functions.  I am just doing any work needed, from up here now. 

Jake continued to endure school through July- good for him!  To my surprise I have learned that I prefer the working life over school.  As fun as school can be, it’s just all too consuming.  I love going to work and then having the nights free; I am excited for graduation!

On July 17, we went to see Guys & Dolls as part of the Utah Festival Opera summer series.  I had never seen it before.  We made a fun date night out of it, and went to dinner first off and sat out by the river at Element’s restaurant.  It was so fun, we felt like we were in Jackson Hole on vacation!  The next day was Scott’s birthday!  We had a fun celebration at the house both Sunday, the day of his birthday, and Monday evening as well. 

Pioneer day was a day filled with festivities as well!  We started it off by attending a breakfast put on by the local Rotary club.  We then went with the Peterson’s on their annual 24 of July hike.  We hiked a grueling 11.5 miles in the middle of the day.  We hiked to the famous Jardine Juniper tree.  The hike really wasn’t all that difficult itself.  However, the 90-degree weather, lack of water, and two dogs that gave up for about half the hike, made it hard.  After cleaning up we headed over to have dinner with my family.  We then headed down to Willow park to enjoy the Peter Breinholt (LDS singer) concert and fireworks show.  The next day, we headed up to Bear Lake following church.   We ended up commuting back and forth between Bear Lake four separate times that week, allowing Jake to squeeze in school and I work.  The Petersons had their annual Bear Lake week and then once they left on Friday, we played with my fam, Brian and Catherine, Dave & Jen’s fam, and G&G on Saturday and Sunday.  While with the Peterson’s we enjoyed the Pickleville Playhouse BBQ and the musical, “Crazy for You,” Wave Running, playing card games, celebrating Angie’s (Jake’s mom’s) birthday, and squeezing in all the Rhino rides we could.  (A Rhino is like Grandma & Grandpa’s Mule on steroids).  Luckily we were in Logan the day that Grandma had a yummy dinner while Laura, Brian, and Catherine were up.  It was fun to have such a big gathering of family!  We loved being with the family up at the cabin as well.  Grandma and Grandpa were so nice and let us borrow their boat for the day.  It was such a fun Saturday on the lake!  The entire weekend was just great!

Well, I think that’s all I have to blabber about.  Have an enjoyable August!  Make sure to squeeze in all the fun you can before school starts!:)                Love, Kristina & Jake

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

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                                             

                    

April 2010

Dear Family,

April was busy, busy, busy in the Peterson casa.  Lots of fun/busy school related things hit us like a rock this month including:

·      *Breaking the SEED (microfinance) donation record in our Management class.  Our group of 12 (with my amazing wife as our CEO) raised $4,200! 

·      *Huntsman Scholar duties, Tina was selected as the recruiting VP and I as the activities VP for next year.  It ought to be a fun experience.

·      *Recruiting for Accounting Internships/Jobs.  I really want to work for a Big 4 Accounting Firm in Salt Lake after graduation.  Fingers crossed!

·      *We were both selected as Huntsman Business School Ambassadors for next year.  This will be a very fun opportunity to network with successful alums and recruit high school and transfer students to the business school.

·      *Registering for summer classes.  Tina will take 6 credits and I will take 12.  Gotta hustle through till we graduate in a year.

·      *Lots and lots of end-of-year banquets and socials.  (In one week we ate at Hamilton’s, Café Sabor, Elements and Chili’s!!  Maybe school ain’t so bad J)

The best part about life isn’t school or work however; it’s having fun with family and friends.  April was also one of the most fun months we have had so far as a married couple.  All the fun stuff included:

·      Going down to a mission reunion in Provo.  It felt great to FINALLY be able to introduce my wife at one of these after 2 whole years!

·      Going to game 3, Jazz vs. Nuggets.  We lucked out and got 2^nd row seats right behind the basket.  What a great game!  Done with the Nuggets, BEAT L.A.! (We realize that the Lakers will have ousted us by the time people read this, but that doesn’t mean we still aren’t crazy Jazz fanatics.)

·      Feeding the ducks at first dam.

·      Playing lots of H.O.R.S.E. and P.I.G. with Scott and Heather, those kids can shoot!  We also love going to see them play soccer on Saturday mornings.

·      Best of all, seeing Grandpa Neal ride in the saddle at Texas Roadhouse on his birthday.

                                      

                                          We love you all and wish you a very merry May!

Spring Break 2010

Dear Family,

Finally the day has arrived that I am no longer married to a teenager!!!  Happy Birthday to the best, most beautiful wife in the world!

March was full of Leprechauns and Pots o’ Gold here in the Peterson home.  Kristina is very good at decorating and had fun adding a touch of green to the house after taking a stroll to the dollar store.  Now, just like that, the Easter decorations are up!

Just like every month, March has been full of school, work, church callings, etc. etc. etc. But, March also brought a very needed treat, Spring Break!!!  Kristina and I had the amazing opportunity to go to San Diego to visit my mission.  Finally the wonderful people of San Diego were able to meet Elder Peterson’s better half.  They all loved Kristina!  She was bombarded with gifts including a t-shirt, a spoon holder, a mug, a statue of an ancient Mexican/Indian woman kneeling, a necklace, and of course, drawings from the children.  I was so happy to see some of my favorite people in the world get to know and love my favorite person in the world.

We mainly spent our time visiting converts, eating Mexican food, and reminiscing, but we also took the time to see the beach, wait in line for two hours to eat at the famous Phil’s BBQ, and spend a day at the Zoo.  The gorillas were the best of course, but we also got to see quite a show when a male peacock flew in and tried to impress his female friend…those feathers sure are gorgeous!   Overall, our time in San Diego was priceless.  It really made Kristina wish she could have served a mission.  Oh well, we will serve plenty of them in the future when we are grown ups!

On the way back from San Diego we stopped in St. George for a couple of nights.  I was a nice husband and let Kristina go shopping at the outlets while I stayed home and watched some March Madness.  We enjoyed the sun and a few good meals and headed back to Logan.

School has hit us hard since we’ve been back, as well as the decision to study abroad in Africa this summer.  It was a tough decision process, but we finally decided it was best for us to stay home in the summer and go to school, work, and have fun.  We love Logan and miss all of you!

Love,

Jake & Kristina Peterson

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

First Month of Marriage

Dear Family,

Our first family newsletter- how fun!  Well, I guess everything is fun when it’s a first- even the first few batches of dishes were a blast… then reality set in, but it’s all still great!

We’ve had a wonderful month- a very eventful one!  We were lucky to have a short fall semester due to our study abroad, and ended school Nov. 20.  This gave us a good amount of time to get the final wedding preparation in.  Our wedding was Friday, December 11.  The whole day was incredibly amazing and memorable.  We feel so blessed to have supportive families that took time out of their busy lives to be a part of the day’s events- so thank you!  It was extra special to have Wade’s dad be our sealer- what a great day!

We spent the next eight days on our honeymoon.  We stayed in SLC for two nights-enjoying the lights at Temple Square, a Temple session (live!), and the MoTab Christmas Concert- prior to flying out to the Big Apple.  We had a great few days in NYC!  We were lucky enough to stay right on Times Square at the Marriot Marquis.  We enjoyed a lot of NY tourism while there:

Statue of Liberty- hiked to the crown, Canal Street (China Town), Central Park-carriage ride, Shopping 5 avenue (mostly with our eyes), Manhattan Temple Session, Empire State Building, Stardust Café, Shake Shack, Junior’s Cheese Cake, Europa Café, Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, Mary Poppins the musical, In the Heights- ’08 Broadway musical of the year, and the amazing Rockette’s Christmas Music Spectacular! 

After enjoying the hustle and bustle of NYC, we decided to tone things down a bit.  We flew up to Palmyra, where we spent the remainder of our trip.  It surely was the “best for last!”  The city was empty and quite dead, but covered in a beautiful blanket of snow.  We were able to do yet another temple session, which we highly enjoyed!  We also visited the Hill Cumorah and Hill Cumorah Visitor’s Center as well as the E.B. Grandin Print Shop (where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed), Smith family farm visitor’s center, log cabin, & home, the Sacred Grove, and the Peter Whitmer farm and visitor’s center.  Being the off-season for Palmyra, we were privileged to have private tours at all the sites.  The Sacred Grove was a neat experience, however, it was freezing cold and snowy so we weren’t able to sit and ponder.   So, we are dying to go back in the summer and do that as well as attend the pageant.  Our favorite stop was the Peter Whitmer farm and Visitor’s Center.  It is about a 30 min. drive from Palmyra, and completely worth it.  The Whitmer Farm is where Joseph & Oliver translated the small plates and where the Church was organized.  The missionary couple at this location was especially great.  They filled us full with amazing stories of church history and bore strong testimony about the work that went on at this special site.  Church history trips are surely a great way to “re-ignite the flame!”

Christmas was wonderful!  We loved all the festivities of the time leading up to Christmas as well as the day of.  On Christmas day we ran between relatives’ homes from 6am- almost midnight!  It was a great day filled with family fun and the Christmas spirit.  We especially enjoyed the entire holiday break.  It gave us plenty of time to get settled into our home and spend lots of time with family!

We are now back in school and doing well! 

Happy New Year!

Love, Kristina & Jake Peterson