Christmas 2008

Me and Steve had a GREAT Christmas this year! We drove 13 hours to Austin, TX because my oldest sister and her husband live there. There were 13 of us all together and all I can say is PARTY! It was really cool too because my cousin BrieAnn and her husband Jake and thier little baby Cora came too. It was the first time we've had a baby at a family get together! But Cora was so fun and we were all way sad when they left Friday! We really had a blast, Steve and I got there late late on Tuesday night and stayed until the next Monday morning. The family togetherness was so awesome on this trip, we all had a lot of fun and late nights spent hanging out. This next part I totally plagiarized from Mhari's blog, but I thought she did such a great job summing up our adventures that I couldn't do a better job. I will however make some changes to keep it interesting!


We spent Christmas Eve doing all kinds of things. Mom and Kiersty and I were making aprons for everyone. Kiersty found these super cute retro patterns and we all bought fabric and that was the majority of the day.


Steve was kind enough to let me open my gift a day early so that I could find out it wasn't a fish tank like he had been telling me all week.

Here is my apron! I spent ALL day making it, I am such a beginner, my mom had like 6 half way done when mine was half done! It was fun though, to figure out my machine actually make something!

The boys went to see Yes Man to avoid all this girly stuff. :-) And then came home to play more of the Wii puzzle game. It took 4 of them to solve portions of this. When Steve got here he was immediately attacked to find out which of the 4 of them took physics 2 last and could be a better problem solver. See how hard at work they were?

And then we had some yummy lasagna for dinner - Thanks Meg and Brittany, made sugar cookies - as if we hadn't eaten enough - even Cora jumped in to help.
And Mhari started baking for Christmas day. We had chocolate pecan pie, pumpkin caramel cheesecake, and caramel apple pie. And we ended the night with White Christmas to really get us in the spirit of things. And Cora let dad hold her and play with her and laughed at his funny faces. :-)


Christmas Day was a pretty laid back day. We ate a late brunch of Grandma Carlene's famous stuffed french toast and buttermilk syrup (THANKS GRANDMA FOR SHARING THE YUMMY GOODNESS!!!) and we finally started opening gifts around noonish. We always start out with the youngest and work our way up, so Cora was up first. She really wasn't sure what to do but enjoyed tearing up the paper more than the gifts probably.


Here is BrieAnn holding her best present of the year. Bows and all.
As well as a fabulous necklace - Thanks Steph.

Mhari got a garmin so she will stop calling James for directions when she doesn't prepare before leaving the house.

Seth got a soccer sweatshirt from Kiersty and his face says it all.
Brittany started a wrapping paper war with Seth and Steve...She just got beaned in the head twice in a row by them.

Jake for all of his spare time, now has a Rubiks cube to help occupy it.

And Steve got some new goggles so he can be totally pimp out on the slopes!
Mom got a new shirt to wear for pictures and of course for work too.

Dad got I believe the only John Wayne movie he doesn't already own. (now what do we get him?)
James got some new Wii games to entertain him when not busy with his car.

Megan got some new movies to entertain her roomates with.
And then there was the end of Hurricane Christmas '08!

We had a great Texas Christmas menu of brisket, mashed potatoes, homemade mac and cheese, and of course yummy pies. I will be trying to lose the weight for months to come!! And we did family pics. I'll post those later as this is already super long!
Friday morning BrieAnn and Jake and baby Cora had to head back home to Oklahoma for the Johnson family Christmas. We were sad for them to go, but so glad they made it and we got to hang out with them. The rest of us piled in to the cars and headed for Fredericksburg. It is a great little German, touristy town about an hour and a half from here. James and I love going there. Great food, great shopping and lots of fun. We took everyone to our fave restaurant - Friedhelm's Bavarian. It is fantastic food. I introduced them to schnitzel, spaetzle, rye bread and they loved it!! We then tried to go to the George H. W. Bush museum/Admiral Chester Nimitz museum of the Pacific Theater of WWII, but it was under construction. So instead we walked around the memorial wall. So many people gave their life for that. It is such a wonderful reminder of all those people were willing to sacrifice, and it makes me wonder how we can't comprehend a sacrifice for the war we are in now. I really liked this plaque.

We saw dad's hero, Ronald Reagan.
We found the plaque for one of the ships Grandpa Roy served on. The USS Monterey.

And we found a friend of Grandpa Irl's who dad even met one time. He served on a ship with Grandpa Irl, but the plaque is for another ship he spent time on. The Arisan Maru was a Japanese ship that was sunk by US Ships and was carrying over 1800 POW's to do slave labor in Japan. Of the POW's 9 survived and Grandpa Irl's friend Robert S. Overbeck was one of those 9.


We came home Friday night and Steve made us all Ukranian borscht. James was unsure, but being the great person he is, tried it with a brave face ;-) and then realized it wasn't as bad as he was expecting and actually said it was good. Yea Steve! That is a high compliment from James!

Everyone left except for me and Steve early Saturday morning. Kiersty, Seth and Megan headed for Tucson so that Megan could be dropped off, and then they made it all the way to about Kingman before finishing the rest of their journey back to Provo on Sunday. Mom, Dad and Brittany headed to Phoenix. Britt is spending the rest of her Christmas break at home before hitching a ride back to Provo.
We stayed for a few extra days so we could see the stuff we had missed earlier in the week.
It was a great week for us to all catch up, get to know each other againand remember how lucky we all are to have a great family.


Haha, that's the end of my modified post! Do you like how I even made it sound like I wrote it... really i just changed all of the pronouns! But I think you can see why I didn't have the will to write such a long post-- there was so much to write about! Anyways, I hope all of you had a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year! We are leaving for SLC on tuesday for a week of snowboarding and hangin out with the Hale clan! Wahoo!

I have a life again!

So I know it's been a LONG time since I last posted, but life has been pretty insane since then! But I just finishes my last final today and I am so excited to be done! I only have one more round of undergrad finals until I have a degree! Wahoo! So just a little update on what we have been up to since our last post...

BYU vs. Air Force Game

Steve's family started a new tradition last year that is to go to an away BYU game every year. This year the only one everyone could go was in Denver, CO. We went up for the weekend and met all of the Hale family plus a whole bunch of cousins. Steve's cousin was so nice to let like 10 visitors stay at their home. We had a great time, short but so fun. BYU won, which was great, it kept everyone happy! It was the first time we had been cold in a long time, it felt great!

The Crew

Post Game Pictures


Thanksgiving

Steve and I had a fantastic Thanksgiving! My Aunt Becky and Uncle Kent hosted Thanksgiving up in Snowflake, AZ. We had a ton of family there and it was so much fun to be with everyone and see the family we don't typically get to see! We had lots of yummy food and good time with the fam. One night everyone gathered in the basement to play Rockband on the Wii. I was ok on the guitar, bad at the drums and worse at singing! I was like the worst singer ever! Steve did well on all instruments! I didn't take very many pictures while we were there, so sorry! The only unfortunate thing about Thanksgiving was we had to leave on Saturday because I had a lot of homework due the next week!

Lund Family- well part of it anyway

Since Thanksgiving our life has been crazy! The last two weeks of school were filled with test, paper, test, paper, project.... And during that time Steve had his first business school application due this past Monday. So in case you were wondering we were both studying and writing all the time... it was not that much fun! So now I am done with school for a month :) and we are both going to be working on grad school applications trying to get them in by the deadlines! The most exciting part about life right now is in a week we are drivng to Austin, TX to spend Christmas with my WHOLE family! And in like 3 weeks we are going to Salt Lake to spend time with Steve's family and snowboard! Woot Woot.

Life Lately

Well I know it has been a while since our last blog post, but life has been soooo crazy and busy! We have been preparing for our graduate exams, Steve already took the GMAT and did really really well, I was so proud of him! He is now preparing to take the GRE in about two weeks. I'm sure he'll fo just as well on that test. I took the GRE a couple of weeks ago, I was so glad to have that over with. After the test, my brain was absolutely fried, in fact, I still don't know if I have recovered!

So we had a really fun Halloween! We didn't have any parties to go to or any reason to dress up, so we just stayed at home and hung out together. Steve barbecued some bison burgers. I thought they sounded really gross but they seriously tasted just like hamburger, and bison is better for you! Then we carved some sweet pumpkins. Mine is the cat, and Steve's is the evil menacing face! It was pretty darn scary!


Sunday, was my birthday! I am finally 21 and am legal :) Wahoo! At midnight on saturday, Steve let me open my gifts! I just couldn't wait any longer. I got some sweet stuff! Steve gave me a heart rate monitor that counts calories while you work out. I am really excited because I have been wanting one of these for a while. And now I have some extra motivation to work out. On Sunday we had some friends over and played games and ate lava cakes and ice cream! It was a great day. Steve is extending my birthday celebration by taking me out to dinner tonight and then tomorrow he is taking me to a movie! What a great guy!

The Great Outdoors

So the latest in the Hale's life... I started school two weeks ago, I am already dying for the end of the semester- how bad is that? Steve is still stayin really busy at work and trying to get ready to take the GMAT.

Over Labor day weekend we went for a hike with our friends Amber and Scott (the same hike that we went on with Steve's mom in March when I was miserable...) This time went a lot better than the first time. We started early so we stayed cool an dwe just had a lot of fun... For the first half of the hike anyways! When we got to the falls we got in the pools and were swimmin around to cool off and there is a nifty little rock slide. Steve and I went to go down it, and he went down just fine and then I stood up to go down and I took one step and my feet came out from under me and the next thing I knew I had landed right on my chin and cheek. All I could think about as I was lying on this rock was I just got a Traumatic Brain Injury, I guess that's the future SLP in me... Anyways it was a pretty nasty fall, I cut my chin and almost immediatly my chin started to swell up. Luckily, an ER doctor came over and gave us some ice and told us to super glue my chin closed! The worst part was we had to hike 3 miles out to get back to our car, but really I was just happy that I wasn't on my way to the ER!

My chin was pretty purple and blue for a couple of days, I really looked like a battered woman! Sorry about the drugged look on my face in these pictures, it was right before we went to bed and I was TIRED!

The month of July!

The Month of July was a busy one! All sorts of stuff was going on and the blog just got away from me! So here is a brief run through of the last month of our lives!

Fourth of July

We spent our fourth of July in Tucson, and my parents and little sister came down and spent the night of the third and the day of the fourth with us! We played cards and initiated my family into the Hale tradition of Rook! On the fourth, we drove up to Mount Lemmon and had the loveliest day, the temperatures were all the way down in the 60's! We had a nice hike and the barbecued steaks and had all the regular fourth of July fixins... YUM!

First Anniversary

So the 14th of July was our one year anniversary-- I can't believe it has already been one year since we got married! It has been absolutely the best year of our lives. The week before our anniversary we were able to go to the temple and do sealings. It was so special to remember that incredible day. For our anniversary we went to Ruth's Chris steakhouse because that is where we went on our wedding night. It was sooo yummy! We would eat there every night if we could afford it :) And instead of giving eachother gifts we decided to get rid of our awful bed and get a new one, it has been really nice to get a good night's sleep. So I just posted a couple of our wedding pics and one from our anniversary dinner

BIG NEWS!!!

I know you are all thinking... Big news... Kalli is pregnant, but no... The big news is that I FINALLY beat Steve in Scrabble, in fact, I not only beat him but I spanked him. I won by like 50 points. We got scrabble for our wedding and I hadn't beat him until jus this month. This is a picture of my victory board! Wahoo!

Monsoon Season

Every July and August Tucson gets a monsoon season and it rains practically every day. Steve and I sit on our balcony alot and watch the lightning. It is really a cool thing about Tucson. It also brings a blessed break in the really hot weather. So this picture was taken from our balcony after an afternoon rainstorm. Rainbows happen a lot during monsoon season but I think this is one of the first double rainbows I've seen.

Fondue Party

We had a fondue party with our friends Troy and Nancee. We got a fondue pot for our wedding but hadn't ever used it. So we were excited when Troy and Nancee wanted to do one. They had a pot too, so we made peanut butter fondue and chocolate fondue. It was a feast! We will definitely do that more often

Camping at Rose Canyon Lake

We drove up to Mount Lemmon with our friends Scott and Amber. The funny thing about the whole adventure is we got there at like 8 on thursday night, Scott and Amber had to leave the next morning at like 9 and Steve and I left at like 2. So we weren't there for very long at all. But it was still really fun. We had tinfoil dinners and roasted marshmallows and made smores. While we were making smores a skunk ran through our camp! We were all terrified we would get sprayed but luckily it left! The next morning during our breakfast we saw a javelina, which is an ugly pig looking creature-- There is a picture down below! After Scott and Amber left, Steve and I went for a nice little hike for a couple of hours. We really enjoyed the cooler weather and time to spend together and with friends!

So that is life for us lately. I am about to finish my second summer semester on Wednesday. I can't wait. Then I get a ten day break before the fall semester starts-- wahoo! Steve has been extremely busy at work and had two trips to California this last month and he is really excited because he is going backpacking with a couple of guys in our ward this week ( I am just glad he is going with other guys and not trying to make me go!) Other than that Steve and I are both trying to study for our graduate admissions exams, so any advice on taking the GRE or the GMAT is totally welcome!