An Update

Just wanted to let you know of a few things that are new with us. =)

First, and best of all, school is out for the summer, and we are lovin' our seven week break!

Second, I just got hired at Great Harvest as a cashier/customer service rep, which I am super excited about. (I start on Tuesday.) This should be a great job for me, as well as something I can continue to do until we leave for further schooling next fall. I don't know how often I'll get to work with Travis, but I'll be happy to whenever I can!

Third, Travis has signed up to take the MCAT on September 3. More details will follow after that as to where we might be applying for school...

Fourth, as my father-in-law stated on his blog, we recently got to meet Elder Hales. We were touring the Joseph Smith Memorial Building when Travis saw him walk out of a nearby restaurant. To our surprise, he came our way, and not wanting to miss this awesome opportunity, I asked him if I could shake his hand. He replied "Of course" and then proceeded to shake all of our hands and allow us to introduce ourselves to him. He is a very sweet, genuine man, who has a very caring spirit about him. We were all happy to meet this apostle of God.

And finally, we just got back from a wonderful trip to Wyoming to see our sister Cassie and her family and to tour some Church History sites, as well as another trip to Utah to drop our brother Tyler off at the MTC. More posts on these to follow soon, so keep checking back!

July 28, 2008--Our First Year Anniversary

For our first year anniversary, we decided to go all out and have a romantic evening...across town...in Kilimanjaro. We stayed in the Kilimanjaro Suite at the AmericInn in Rexburg. We had such a good time! It was a really neat room too! It was set up as a large tent in the middle of the African jungle; we really felt as if we were far, far away.



You can tell from this picture how they created the "tent in the jungle" theme:


Our comfy and romantic queen sized bed:


The jetted tub. You better believe we made good use of this, taking a couple of long soaks throughout our stay. It even had mood lights!

Travis getting aquainted with the local inhabitants:

Here we are in Kilimanjaro:

And of course, there was also lots of snuggling involved!

It was soooo nice to have lots of quality time together, just the two of us. We watched romantic movies, ate pizza, drank sparkling cider, played games, soaked in the tub, and just enjoyed being together. It was a great "love tank filling" time! We love being married, and look forward to lots more anniversaries to celebrate together in the years to come!

Rafting!

Hey, everyone. Hope you had a pleasant weekend. We went rafting this weekend on the Snake River in Wyoming. It was fun but the water was ice cold...much, much colder than the Salmon. We didn't think ahead enough to get a waterproof camera but there were some pictures taken of us by some company that sells these pics to rafters. Click HERE to see the pictures. I think there are five pictures of us. We're in the purple boat. Dad was our fearless leader at the back of the boat, and we had on one side Tyler, Nancy(Ty's friend), Lori & Mel(Jenny's friends), and Me, Jenny & Chelsi on the other side. I think everyone had a good time... Even Tyler, although Lunch Counter rapids forced him to go for a swim (see the pictures). It just doesn't quite feel like summer unless you go rafting.

Ward Campout

Our ward had a campout last weekend at Heise Hot Springs. We just went up for Friday evening because I had to come back for work Saturday morning but it was fun while we were there. Here are some pics that Jenny took.

There was volleyball...

and football... Some of the guys in the ward played a pretty intense game of 500. That was fun to watch. I know, you're all wondering why I didn't play since I am one of the biggest, strongest, toughest men around but I was busy helping Bishop Transtrum start the fire.

Me and Bishop T starting the campfire. I think I got enough smoke in my eyes that night to last me all year.

There was a campfire program planned and I was volunteered to be part of an Elders Quorum "skit" that wasn't really a skit. It was this game where I was acting like the host of a party and three of my guests had really weird quirks. I had to try to figure out what was wrong with them. One guy had an obsession with smelling hands, another guy was paranoid about his body odor and I don't remember the third one. It was pretty fun. Here's a picture.

This is everyone gathered around the campfire. There really was good turnout, more than I expected.

I was asked to make a dutch oven cobbler dessert for everyone. I borrowed Dad's two 14 inch dutch ovens and made one peach and one apple cobbler. They turned out quite nicely if I do say so myself. There was a lot leftover but on Sunday we took some to a family I home teach, my companion took some for him and his wife and we gave some to our new neighbors. Thank heaven for good friends to help you out with leftover food.

Camping at Rigby Lake

This past Wednesday, we went camping with Travis' parents, as well as several of Trav's siblings and their families. It was our second camping trip as a married couple, and our first real camping trip of the summer. It was also our first time using our tent and sleeping bags. Wahoo! It was so nice to have a little break in the middle of the week, and to relax and be with family.

The first order of business upon arriving at our campsite on Rigby Lake was to set up our tents and chairs. Here's Jessica chillin in a camp chair as the boys set up camp:


"Uncle Trav" was nice enough to help Jessica out with her shoes so she could run around in the dirt and play:


The kids thought that the big tent was the coolest play place ever:


Kamela taking a break to say "cheese" for me as she plays in the tent:

After setting up camp, we all headed for the lake. Kamela and her parents spent a little time splashing around in the water and canoeing before they had to go. Mindi, Cailyn, Jessica, and I decided to swim across the lake to the beach area and play in the water and sand over there. Boy howdy, was that a good workout! The girls had a good time in the sand and shallow water though. =) Travis, Jason, and Mom Holloway canoed over later and swam and hung out on the beach with us there. It was so nice to be at the lake. It really made it feel like summer.

After the lake, we had a scrumptious dinner and our first round of roasting marshmellows. Here are Chelsi and Sean with their toasted mallows:

Cailyn thought marshmellow roasting would be a good idea too:

Before Chelsi, Sean, and Kamela left, Kamela gave us all loves. She was particularly fond of Cailyn and gave her several hugs. It was so sweet!

After the Ganatos clan left, we all sat around and chatted for a while. Here are Jason and Mindi having a good chuckle:

Our campsite was large and nicely wooded. It was so good to be out in the great outdoors!

The girls continued to hang out, talk, and play games while the boys went off to play a game of water football.

Here are Mindi and Tia playing a game of speed by the light of the lantern:

When the boys came back, we made smores and enjoyed some campfire music performed by Travis and Jason. Good times.

It was so nice to be outdoors and to spend time with our family! Thanks everyone for coming along with us. The memories we made are the kind that the stuff of life are made out of!

Summer Dress Give-a-way!

I recently found out about a dress give-a-way through my sister-in-laws blog (she is the queen of all deals), and wanted to share it with all of you gals who read our blog.
This give-a-way is through a company called Mikarose that specializes in modest, fashionable, and VERSATILE dresses. They have a nice variety of beautiful dresses that would be perfect for ANY season. Not only that, but they have the CUTEST little girl dresses.
This giveaway is about YOU...and the winner will walk away with a $60.00 gift certificate for Mikarose!
So, here's the scoop. Go to Mikarose.com and check out the beautiful line of dresses. Then go to my sister-in-law's blog at www.brholloway.blogspot.com and leave a comment telling her which dress you like and why. PLUS, if you post this on your own blog, leave another comment letting her know you posted and you will be entered TWICE!
So, go spread the word!! Check out the site, and maybe you'll get to treat yourself to one of their beautiful dresses to celebrate summer!
---Giveaway will end at 11:59 p.m. PST on Friday, July 18th. Winner will be announced the following day.
Good luck!

A pizza fit for...Ruperman!

Saturday was pizza day for the Holloways in Rexburg. It's been a long, busy week and we could almost smell the freshly baked, homemade pizza before we finished our grocery shopping. There was nothing to do but give in and make it as soon as we got home. The dough recipe we use makes about a pizza and a half but we never eat that much so we use the extra for breadsticks or other experiments we feel like trying (we made a calzone once that was pretty good). Tonight, we decided to just make a mini pizza so i started rolling out the leftover dough. Now, we all know that standard pizzas are round and I personally am a big fan of round pizza but this second pizza we made turned out to be more than your average pizza. It naturally rolled out into more of a triangular shape and Jenny and I knew that this pizza was going to be special. This was going to be... a Ruperman Pizza (insert "Superman" theme music here).
You may think that I'm just mis-spelling "Superman" but that's not the case. Our oldest nephew, Gavin, is a big Superman fan and has some pretty cool Superman PJ's, cape included. But he has a little difficulty pronouncing the word "Superman." So when Gavin wears his Superman outfit he becomes the one and only Ruperman.
This pizza's for you, Ruperman. We'll save it for you til you come visit us again. Just kidding. But we'll definitely think of Ruperman when we eat this special pizza with his trademark symbol.



Ruperman's pizza before cooking. Have you ever tried to make an "R" out of pepperoni in a space that small? Yeah, not as easy as it sounds.




Jenny took a couple videos of me putting the pizza in the oven and pulling it out. Don't ask me why I'm wearing an oven mitt in the second video because the paddle wasn't hot at all. Habit, I guess. This was some pretty dang good pizza.

RUPERMAN!

A fun tag

Here's a little "tag" going around...and I thought it was pretty cool, so I thought we'd do it too! Please feel free to add a memory about Trav, me, or the both of us!
1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Amici's

Last Thursday, Travis and I decided to try out a new Italian restaurant, Amici's, for dinner. Amici's means "friends" in Italian, and their slogan is "Where everyone is welcome." It was a cozy little restaurant, with a fun theme. The waiters and waitresses were dressed up as 20's gangsters, and there were paintings of Italian cooks and landscapes on the walls.



Shortly after we sat down, we were brought menus and french bread topped with olive oil and freshly grated parmesean cheese. We had a hard time deciding which delicious-sounding entree to get, but decided on chicken rigatoni and chicken asiago bowtie pasta. They were soooo scrumptious--the best Italian food we'd ever had!


Travis took this picture. I thought he did a great job!



Here's a close-up of my chicken rigatoni...sooo scrumptious! I kept thinking to myself, "If I could eat this good everyday, I'd be in heaven!"




We decided to splurge and get some dessert. This was the strawberry shortcake. It was huge! (We only ate like half of it, and brought the rest home.)


This is Travis' depiction of a strawberry SHORTCAKE:


Here we are in front of a pretty Tuscan wall painting:


Yea for date nights out on the town!

We got completely stuffed and had such a good time! It's now our new favorite restaurant, and definitely some place we will return to again and again!

A Day at the Lake

Last Saturday, we had the opportunity to go to Blackfoot and spend time with our family. It was sooo good to see and spend time with everybody!
We spent most of the day at Jensen's Grove, and had some fun in the sun and water!

Here is our brother-in-law Mark, sister-in-law Mindi with her daughter Jessica, and Mindi's brother Cory chillin' in the lake. They were the brave souls to take the first dip in the water!


Cory and Jessica splashing in the waves:


Our nephew Gavin and niece Cailyn playing together on the beach. I love that our neices and nephews love playing with each other!

Our neice Kamela loved the water! She is such a cute, sweet girl! We've missed her!

Travis and his siblings taking out Daddy Dave's canoe for a spin:

And coming back to get more people to take out:

The guys thought it would be only fair to soak mom and dad holloway as they left for their canoe ride (as dad had been spraying us all all day). What a good lookin' bunch of guys they are!

Afterwards, the guys started a frisbee game.

Mark going in for the catch (not with Gavin in his arms, of course)!

After we were all done playing in the water, we hung out on the beach and talked and snacked.

Trav's sister Tia loves her neices and nephews. Here she is hangin out with Jessica and Kamela as she works on her sun tan:

Jessica is an excellent scavenger, and such a cute cute girl!

It was so nice to spend some time at the lake, catch some rays, and to above all have so much fun with our family! We love to spend every chance we can get with them! Thanks for coming to visit everyone!

Our 4th of July

Now that all of the partying has slowed down, I can finally get to this post about the 4th of July! (j/k.) We did have a great weekend though. Well, here's the rundown of our 4th of July:

We got to spend the day with several of our family members--which was SO MUCH fun! Travis' dad; Travis' siblings Tyler, Tia, and Cassie, with her husband Mark and their two kids--Gavin and Megan; Grandma Larsen; and Mark's parents, all came down for the Rexburg parade. Wo-hoo!

We started off the day at Great Harvest, where we enjoyed scrumptious cinnamon rolls and side walk conversation.


"It is you Peter!" (see the movie "Hook.") jk. Gavin was sweet enough to run up and hug each of us in greeting. What a sweet kid. We love you Gav!


"I gets candy!" Gavin was all over the fact that many of the people in the parade would be tossing candy into the crowd. And who wouldn't be, really?


Gavin and his dad running to grab the tossed candy. Gavin was a great little scavenger and got quite the "pirate's booty" of candy for a 3-year-old! Go Gav!


Trav and I watchin' the parade. It was hot hot hot!


Gavin clapping for the floats that passed by:


Here are a few of the floats/groups from the parade:

We thought these horse riders were pretty tricksy.

A float for the annual International Dance Festival:

Travis' employer, Great Harvest's, float. (Notice the bread basket in the back of the car.) We Love Our Troops and Great Harvest Too!

A float depicting the crossing of the Delaware. I am so grateful for our founding fathers and for all of those who have continued to protect our freedom. I love living in the USA!

I should have thought to take a video of this one (dangit). Here, Mark is doing a Sugar City Cheer with the SCHS cheerleaders. You should have seen it, really. =) Go Diggers!

We are lovin' this!

After the parade, we headed over to Aunt Terri's house for a barbeque and some quality family time. Then, Cassie, Mark, Gavin, Megan, and the two of us went to Porter Park for "a day at the park." We had fun splashing around in the water park and tossing a frisbee around. And in the evening, we returned to Terri's to watch the fireworks and eat some popcorn (and get eaten by mosquitos). And a good time was had by all. Thanks everyone for celebrating our country's independence with us. We love you!