A brief of 2011 (our Christmas letter)

Ryan and I have been living in Boise for about seven months. We really like here and the neighborhood that we are in.

We like our ward a lot, and have met a lot of great families here. We are currently teaching the 10 and 11 year olds. I have the 10 year old girls and Ryan the 11 year old boys. There was one boy in my class but they moved him to Ryan’s class cause they felt bad leaving him with the class of mostly girls. I look forward to next year, we will be teaching the eight year olds together.

This year I learned how to grow a garden. My father in-law Mike has been staying with us when he is up here running the business (more about that in a moment). Since he was here with us I had the chance to learn how to grow a garden from him. I had quiet the abundance of green beans and cherry tomatoes. I know to plant less of those next time around hehe.

Mike stays with us when he comes up here. He is part owner in the granite company that Ryan works at (hence how Ryan got the job offer). He still spends time down in Vegas because my mother in-law is still finishing up her masters degree down there. So until she is done he spends some weeks in our third bedroom.

Ryan has been taking a break from school for a bit till he gains residency and learned the business more. He plans to attend BSU in the Fall.

We're going to have a little one.

So originally I wanted to wait a year and Ryan wanted to wait two years. I kinda didn't want to wait that long but we decided on two but then we had a roller-coaster of insurance no insurance. Well more so work didn't supply it so we paid for it ourselves. Darn economy. Well when we decided that we would be moving up to Idaho it was time to start a family. I thought we might get insurance pretty soon. Well we had to wait 6 months and then one more month. I was SO done playing the waiting game. Many people would tell me oh enjoy your time together because once you have a little one you won't have much alone time. For this baby lover I just wanted a kid. I want to be able to hold that little baby more than just for a little bit before it goes home to it's mom. I want to see them have a mixture of our personalities and facial features. I am yearning to hold a little one of my own. I look forward to teaching them.

So we finally decided it was time to start our family. I kinda had a feeling that I might be prego from what I was reading on the internet and so I decided to take and EPT a day early cause I read that they are sensitive enough. Luckly I have not had much of the symptoms (or should I say the worst one) :-D I do sometimes feel slightly light headed but once I eat I'm good. The first week after I found out I definitely felt hungry more often and more tired. Also when I moved certain ways I had a tinging of pain but not bad at all. It's crazy how once you find out you are already considered four weeks along. Now I am 6 weeks and I am pretty sure I wake up every night to go to the bathroom. In the evenings is when I feel the most tender. I like to take baths but I don't like putting the strain on my tummy when I wash my hair so I think it is showers for a while now.

First Snow in Boise

So last night we heard on the news that it was going to possibly snow. While I was at play date (I got to socialize with the girls even though I don't have kids yet hehe) I glanced out the window and sure enough it did.

It's not a lot but it's still fun. Though I'm still not looking forward to when it sticks :-/ I still like the idea of drive to the mountains to get to the snow if you want to go tubing, not having it in your front yard.

Mom & Dad's Visit

Last week mom said that they may come and visit me. Uncle Bishoff was being called as a bishop in Ely so they invited Mom and Dad to come to their Sacrament meeting. They decided to make the extra drive up since they would already be about three and a half hours in my direction.

Yay! It was fun to have Mom and dad come visit me. I got to show them Boise and how beautiful it is up here. We went to the shop first so that they could see what Ryan does.



We went to a farmers market, Picked up some corn, peaches and apricots. Yum! Then we went for a picnic. The weather was so nice.


Later Dad wanted to go to Cabela's (outdoor/camping store). He didn't know that there was one in Vegas until we were already there and I told him but we still had fun walking around in there. Then for dinner I decided that we should pull out our Dutch Oven since we hadn't used it yet. We bought it just before I moved up here since we decided we should have our own. We made BBQ chicken and corn. Mike took over since he teased that Ryan wasn't jumping in and cooking. He started to put oil inside the oven and then set it on the charcoals. I didn't know what he was doing and tried to say aren't we going to put the chicken in yet? He teased is it ready yet? I didn't understand that he was gong to fry it until he set it right in the oil. I thought maybe he was trying to season it like we had to season the grill when I first built it. I was thinking it said it was already seasoned. Well fried BBQ chicken was yummy.

We have cooked quite a few times outside since Mike helped us decide to buy a charcoal grill instead of a gas grill. He said they taste better and are less expensive to cook with.

Starting a Garden

I wanted to write all of this down so that I remember how to do this later. Also I am so excited about all of this that I kind of hope that this will help get my sisters excited to try for themselves.

First if your dirt was as bone dry as my dirt was you need to really soak up the dirt and then rototill it once it has dried up to be moist and not sopping wet.

When you bury you plant dig a deeper hole and put a handful of steer manure in, plant, bury, and then sprinkle a little more manure on top. With tomatoe plants you break off the lowest limbs and then bury the plant so they are now under ground.

Water about every three days with a soaker hose for about an hour or so. That allows the water to soak deeper into the ground. Water with miracle grow about every 7 days until they are within a month of crop to induce growth.

I have cherry tomatoes!

I have been working on the website

so I haven't been paying too much attention to the garden so these little babies have really popped up without me noticing them. All of the tomatoe plants have had blossoms for a while but none have created tomatoes just yet till now :-D


And I have some blossoms on this green bean plant! Going to be watching it closely to see it produce some green beans.


My chives and carrots are doing good.


All of my pepper plants have peppers now!


Are these green been leaves pretty or what. I love them!
My Orange pepper plant with the biggest peppers.

Romaine Lettuce Yum!

This leaf is having a little trouble.... I don't know what it is or if it's something that I need to do to help it.
And last but not least the whole garden. Mike bought some wiring to build these cages for around the tomato plants. Ryan helped him build them so that they fit inside the tires. These will help hold up the branches of the tomato plants since they will get heavier when they have large tomatoes on them.

I have Peppers Growing!

Mike brought up some tires to put around the tomato plants. The black line you see running through the plants is my sweater hose. It kind of acts like a bubbler in a way but it looks like it is sweating from tons of tiny little pores throughout the lenth of the hose.



My chives and carrots are definitely getting a lot thicker :-D



This pepper has what you call white disease hehe j/k. It is the stuff I put on it to keep the ants from eating the leaves. There are three little peppers growing already! :-D Yaay!