Pompano Beach, FL

A few weeks ago Jon and I took a week long trip, just the two of us, to a little beach town just north of Fort Lauderdale. We had so much fun just hanging out together, lots of swimming, and lots of relaxing. The fresh fish was pretty good too.
Here we are at a Marlins V. Yankees game:
Right after a snorkel adventure, don't mind my hair I just took my mask off and the salt water didn't mix well with my hair:

This was the view from our balcony during a brief monsoon. These short rainstorms are a daily occurrence it Florida:
Relaxing at the pool:

A beautiful state park we went snorkeling:We loved every minute!

Bring your melon to work day

For those of you that don't know I work at the Boy Scouts of America office in South Ogden, I have worked here off and on for the past four years. One reason I like working here is the fun little work parties they have about once a month. Last year for the Fourth of July we were invited to decorate melons to be judged and then roll down a hill. A lot of people will be out of town this year the week of the Fourth so they decided to hold "Bring your melon to work day" tomorrow instead. Jon and I are going out of town tomorrow but I still wanted to participate so this afternoon Ashlee, the other girl in my department, and I put together this beautiful lady. Her name is Francis Olivia Stuart initials FOS because we work in the Friends of Scouting department. She is mostly edible except for her eyes are FOS recognition pins which we will be retrieving before the great roll down the hill.

Here is a picture of last year's melon

Memorial Day

The last few weeks we have had a lot going on, starting a few weeks back here are some pictures from Memorial Day:
Here we are at the Hooper Cemetery just before a big storm

All the boys at the Ogden Cemetery

All the girls

I hope to share some more events from the past few weeks soon, but this is a start.

New Blog

I took this picture in San Francisco last December, Jon is supposed to look afraid of the wheat, can you tell?
For the past few months I have been trying to think of a good way to share my gluten-free cooking experiences with other people having the same struggles. The past few weeks I have been asked by a few family members with newly celiac disease diagnosed friends if I could give them some kind of literature, but the truth is everything I have learned is in my head or piled in a giant stack of unorganized papers on my desk. This new blog is my attempt to not only share my experiences (good and bad) but to organize my information for myself as well as anyone else that might be able to use it. As of now I haven't posted anything I am still trying to get my head around why I decided to take on yet another project, but my summer classes end soon so I hope to get things moving soon. Feel free to visit at cooking-gluten-free.blogspot.com (the first name I tried, this must be something I am supposed to do) please let me know if you have any ideas. Just for Melanie - one of my first posts will be the fabulous chicken that Curt made for us, I hope this is okay.

Happy Birthday Jon!

Monday was Jon's birthday, the big 26! Love to remind him that no matter what he will always be older than me (even if its only 9 months). Because we both had exams on Monday (and more spread through the week) plus we both had to work on his actual birthday we settled for a fun lunch date.

On Tuesday Jon went golfing (his new favorite sport) with Taft, Colby, and Taft's friend Josh

Tomorrow we are planning a day of birthday fun which probably means if its sunny going to the driving range and if the weather is bad Jon will love staying in and playing with his new computer. His real birthday present was me letting him order parts for a computer he is putting together himself. Not too bad when all I do is give permission and he does all the work. Happy Birthday Jon, I love you!

One Spare Moment

So I finished my last two finals for spring semester yesterday morning. My next class starts on Monday so I thought I would take some of my small amount of spare time to catch up on my blog. Here are a few fun things from the past semester that I didn't have time to post:
In April we were able to attend the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference in the Conference Center. We forgot our camera but here is a picture from my camera:

We have had a few opportunities to babysit my nephew Lincoln he is so adorable!

This semester was a lot harder than I had anticipated, but I survived. One more down, three more to go!

Red Mango!

tonight my mom took me, logan, and libby to the new red mango in layton for some delicious frozen yogurt, yum! next time we'll have to go when jon is not at work so he can come too.

you might be wondering why i posted so soon, mostly because i wanted to get this up before libby, yes i win!

James Family Easter 09

This morning we colored eggs, ate a delicious breakfast, hunted for eggs, and played lots of rock band at the Paulsen home. Thanks for having us, here are a few pics:

I love the picture of chris holding the chicken out for luke, he was not sure about that chicken. I forgot to mention that along with plastic eggs we could also hunt for real chicken eggs because the Paulsen's have 4 or 5 chickens that live in the old dog kennel out back. Only in Hooper, Awesome! I little more explanation:  The Paulsens are Jon's sister Jenny and her husband Chris.  The kids in the pictures are our nieces and nephews on the james' side from left to right in the egg coloring picture: Jordan, Jaycee, Tyler, Maddie (and Kristen) and Luke (and David. 

Nothing going on

From the title of this post you can see it won't be long. We have been going to school, to work, and back to school again over and over. This past week was spring break but we both still had to work so we didn't get to do anything too exciting just sleep in for a few days and that was really nice. My sister Kady bought her kids new sunglasses for their upcoming trip to Hawaii and she sent me these pics from her phone, they are the only pictures I have of anything lately so here you go:
First is Owen

Then Tessa Jane

I love these kids I hope I get to see them soon and we are sad we don't get to go to Hawaii, stupid finals week!

Saying Hello and Goodbye

This morning Licoln was blessed in church by Taft, Taft did such a great job and the baby didn't make a sound. Jon said Lincoln just stared up at Taft and smiled the whole time. Lesha's parents had us all over for a delicious brunch after the blessing. Here is a picture of my immediate family that could come. We missed having the Peterson's there.

On another note this same group went together this evening to the viewing of one of the greatest men we had the chance to know. Bruce Marietti was our neighbor growing up and his three youngest were close in age to the three oldest in our family and his wife and my mom have been best friends for a long time. We were able to see a lot of friends and neighbors from our younger years and we all reminisced about what an amazing person Bruce was and how we will all miss him, but we are glad he is finally pain free and no doubt working hard as he always was. Note to his family: you are in our prayers.