So Much For a New Leaf

So much for turning over a new leaf. I would say I promise to write more often, but that would probably be a lie... So here's an update for now and I hope that I post more this coming year.


Here we are, fishing behind our house, we love being close to the ocean and the intercostal waterways that line the Southern Florida coasts.


Here is Dustan after his first lobster-fishing adventure. He caught two the first time, but later in the season, he and a friend caught eleven at a reef just outside our little home.


Another fun thing we like to do is try new foods down here. The below-pictured fruit is a dragon fruit. They come in white like this one, or pink on the inside. Picture the texture of a kiwi. White ones are a slightly sweet, watery flavor, and pink ones are sweet and super delicious.


Of course, we had to carry on the pumpkin-carving tradition for Halloween! Dustan made a cannibal pumpkin, and our friends Joan and Dru carved a squash instead of a pumpkin. We had a good time.

Another fun Halloween adventure this year was $2 burritos at Chipotle! All we had to do was dress up as a farmer or a vegetable... Here's the Idaho farm girl and her carrot, eating a super yummy, super good deal, burrito.

Once again, in a new place, Jenessa finds herself coaching cheerleading. Here are a few of her newest bunch of elementary school girls from an after-school recreation cheerleading program.

Jenessa also ran one more half-marathon in Orlando, Florida. It was an absolutely beautiful morning for a 13.1 mile run, and Dustan was a sweetheart to come and support me in my crazy hobby. Here we are post-run.

Aside from all of our fun adventures, Dustan has been working away at medical school, so one day he will be able to provide for our little family. I'm so grateful for Dustan and his commitment to our family and his willingness to sacrifice his time to go to school.

Our one other big adventure over the last few months was hosting Thanksgiving for 16 in our little one-bedroom apartment. That was a lot of fun and a lot of crazy, and we'll have to save that for another post.

We hope everything is going well with your family, and once again, we will try to keep you a little more updated on our life in here in Florida.

A New Leaf

We are repenting of our non-blogging ways and it's our goal to update this once a week. We've decided that we have too many adventures to try to play catch-up every six months...

Now, in effort to catch you up on all of our goings on and to not bore you to death at the same time, here are the biggest highlights in our life this summer.

First off, Dustan graduated from BYU with a B.S. in Exercise Science! (Way to go, I'm so proud of you!)


Jenessa ran her first half-marathon, with a time of 2 hours and 10 minutes...


We spent some time with family in St. George and Boise...


Dustan's sister got married - Congrats DeAnna and Bryce!


We packed up all of our earthly possessions...


And moved to FLORIDA!


We now live near Miami, Florida, where Dustan will be attending medical school and eventually will become a foot and ankle surgeon. We'll be here for the next four years or so, followed by a three year stint somewhere else for residency. We're so excited to be starting this new chapter of our life together! So far, the last week and half of living here has been a blast! (Complete with snorkeling, jellyfish stings, missionary experiences, mountain biking and surfing...) Gratefully Hurricane Irene has decided to bypass our new little home. We look forward to the next few years here, and want you all to know that we will gladly host visitors any time! :)

Oops.

We're getting really, really good at not posting on our blog. It's been over six months. Hmmmm. We will be posting our great adventures of the last little while shortly. (I promise this time, really.) Stay tuned for either a massive post or a relatively small update on our life.

Happy Thankmas!

This year for Thanksgiving, we got to spend three days with Dustan's family in a celebration called Thankmas. We celebrate both Thanksgiving and Christmas together in the same weekend and we enjoy lots of food, family and fun. This weekend, Dustan also experienced his first Black Friday outing, where we got a nice new camera... So enjoy the pictures from our "Christmas" parties and just imagine you ate yummy Thanksgiving with us. We're so thankful for our sweet family and the traditions we have. We love you all! Happy Thankmas!

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween, we had a little get together with some family and I made a yummy cake and decorated it like a pumpkin:

We also had some friends over for Family Home Evening and carved pumpkins. Here's a shot of Dustan's (on the left) and my pumpkin (on the right).

After much deliberation about our costumes, we finally decided that Dustan would be Mario!

And I would be Princess Peach!

We had so much stinking fun at a ward party and playing Super Mario with some friends. We hope everyone else had as good of a Halloween as we did!

Slacker Blog.

So it's been a while since we've posted anything and we're sorry for being such slacker bloggers. But we're repenting. We've had a lot of adventures in the last few months, so we'll try to spare you all of the mushy details and catch you up, all at once. Take a deep breath - there are a ton of pictures... but we won't be offended if you don't watch all of them. Enjoy!

First off...
On April 11th we had our FIRST ANNIVERSARY! Our first year was absolutely wonderful and to celebrate, we spent a week on Miami Beach in Florida. We were blessed to get a screaming deal and enjoy a week of fun on the beach.

After that...
We decided to MOVE! We transferred to BYU-Idaho and we've been enjoying every minute of it.



At the end of the semester...
We packed all of our stuff into boxes and stored it in some friends' extra bedroom (Thanks guys!) And we spent a few weeks in Boise family reunionizing and floating the river and all over just having a good time... Alas, we were too busy playing and having a fun time to take pictures, and we have yet to figure out which family member actually did snap a few shots to help us record the event...

After that...
We spent a few weeks in Saint George! Logan came and stayed with us for a week and we took him on tons of adventures - just about everywhere you can go in St. George. We had a blast! Thanks for coming, Logan. (By the way, isn't he such a stud?!)

Since then, we've come back up to school and we're waiting to get into our new apartment. We're excited to be getting into our own place, but a BIG thanks goes out to those that have hosted us the last few weeks. We're both busy in school and looking forward to more adventures. And we'll try a little harder not to be blog slackers from here on out!

Weather we like it or not...

Upon waking this morning, it seemed like it was going to be a beautiful day. We walked out to the car and the sun was peaking over the mountains, the birds were singing, and while it was still chilly, it wasn't so cold that I had to wear a coat. Dustan drove to work, and we listened to Cake (a band) the whole way. I love driving to work with Dustan in the morning. I get to spend 20 minutes with him - just him and me. We sing along to the music (usually something he has introduced me to) and sometimes we even get crazy and start dancing. Morning has always been my favorite part of the day, but it's even better now that I have Dustan to spend it with!
By the time Dustan came to pick me up from work, the sky was looking ominous. Dustan commented on how this morning he had thought that today was going to be the nicest day of the year, and now it was getting windy and rainy. A little disappointed, we shrugged it off and continued on with our day. In our converstion, we determined that today was a good day. Dustan scored well on his Physiology test - 92% - Way to go! And work for me hadn't been stressful in the least. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at J-Dawgs and stopped by the international market just down the street. Then we headed home for an hour or so before Dustan had to go to class and I had to head back to work for Parent/Teacher Conferences.
When it was time to go, we looked out the window, and it had started snowing, and not just the kind of snow that gently floats to the ground and melts away as it touches down. The flakes were huge and wet, coming down in a blizzard-like manner. They stuck to the grass and we couldn't even see any green peeking out above the white. I froze. I do not like to drive in the snow. We got in the car and as we started driving it just got worse. I felt like I was looking into a blizzard and I was terrified of sliding through a stoplight or spinning out while turning the corner. Seeing my anxiety, Dustan offered to drive me to work and be late for class, and even though I didn't want him to miss class, I am grateful that he would be so sweet and willing to drive me to work for the second time today. Oh, and I didn't mind being stuck in the car with him for another twenty-minutes-both-ways, either.