o hi o, abel scievers, 1/2 year of marriage?!...

hey all. well, we have been busy with great things, making fond memories. Jourd's two good pals from flight school both got jobs at Transpac with Jourdan! Ryan Riddle is a dear friend from Jourd's neck of the woods and Justin Ballard, who played hockey with my brothers. woo! Jourdan is excited to have them here! it'll be fun for sure. :)

Also, Jourdan has a friend Nathan Harriman who lives in Mesa with his cute little family. he and jourdan served around each other in Ohio. anywho, we went to the temple with him and had a grand time! after the temple we met up with his wife Emily and daughter Lily. a fun bunch of folks!

we have a new favorite temple trip tradition. we went here before the temple session. t.c. eggington's is a delicious little cafe. so good!

this pancake is bigger than my head!

 

Jourdan and Nathan. cute.

in other news, jourdan and i recently celebrated our half year of marriage mark! woohoo! we decided to celebrate by attempting to make abel skievers. it's a smith family tradition to make these for general conference. we cheated. ;) they're a scandinavian "breakfast" but they are more like a dessert, breakfast makes us feel better. :) we were successful! they were delicious.

cooking away!

then we, at the last minute, decided to go camping! i've been a little bit leery about camping...IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT. haha it actually turned out so great! one of the campgrounds right next to ours is called Scorpion Bay. this made jourd a bit nervous. scorpions are his worst nightmare. and then we found one!

you kinda have to look close to see it. little creep blends in. gross, right?

our cute little campsite. first one for this mr. and mrs. smith! :)

jourdan is good at skipping rocks.

We had such a fun time. however, we did not get the best night's rest. i was the first one to notice the mysterious "foot steps" right outside of our tent. i, of course thought it was some crazy person about to kill us both, or a zombie (stupid 'walking dead' show), or a scorpion? alls i know is that my imagination goes all kinds of crazy when i'm in a strange place, at a strange hour, and apparently delirious.

 so, i woke up jourdan and asked him if he would protect me. yes, i am 8 years old.

for the next hour or so, i heard some hee hawing, which was... really weird. we finally decided to just look outside and sure enough, wild donkeys. we later learned (thanks to the visitors center) that this strange desert land has burro's (wild donkeys), EVERYWHERE. at one point during the night there were about 10 or more of them roaming around our campsite. it was unreal but an adventure indeed! 

i can't believe we've been married for 6 months! i know, not very long at all, but it has flown by. i love my hugsband jourdan. he is the most wonderful fella and i am very grateful to have him for always and eternity. 

love and miss you all! xo

what the hail?, more visitors, china town, fowls...

 This blog is brought to by Jourdan... :)

Last week we had a surprise visit from Jack Frost.  The father of winter himself!  It  turned out to be a big misunderstanding.  (he was supposed to be in Utah blizarding...)  We were happy to have him regardless of the mistake,  his parting gift was an inch of hail. 

What the hail is this?

What the hail is going on?

 

What the hail is on your head?

Later in life we had some more visitors.  Our dear friends Hilary, Sam and baby Ike. And fetus baby Matilda.  Hilary is one of Mindy's dear friends from school. We made them entertain us the whole day.  Thank goodness Sam grew up here and knew some great things to do.  Here is what we did:  

1. Ate the crab for breakfast at TC eggingtons

2. Went Antiquing 

3. Consumed delectable shushies at Bahama Buck's   

4. Hilary made Mindy cut her hair.

5. Mindy made Hilary cut her hair

6. Jourdan had to go take a test for work

7.  Went to the show (jukebox the ghost)

 8. Had fun

                                                                      9. Said Goodbye

10.  Drove away.

A day that will go down in history as a day with Hilary and Sam.  (and sometimes Ike)

We love them and miss them.

One day my students said "sir you come to dinner"  So we did.   Here is the photo proof:

I don't know what happened in this one but Chase (the one to the right of Jourdan)  got all snuggly.

It was really amazing, authentic, Chinese food.  We had a fun time experiencing their culture and food.    

This is not the food they made for us.  This is Mindy's Triumphant dinner that tasted just like India Palace.  Food so good that it got photographed!

 We thought it was a good idea to go to the bird store.  So we went.

 We found lots of neat birds.  Good thing they cost more than our monthly income.  We may have just bought one.

Mindy wakes up early in the morning so she can take videos of me sleeping.  Here is her latest work.