BYU vs. Florida St.

On Saturday, Sept. 19, we headed up to Provo and watched the highly anticipated game between #7 BYU and Florida State. Tiff and I are both huge USC fans, but we thought it would be fun to go and support BYU since they usually don't get a BCS power program to play at Lavell Edwards Stadium. We met Tiff's parents, grandparents, and sister Debbie & bro. in law Eric at the game. The game was fun, especially all of the energy from the fans, but it didn't take too long for the fans to hush as Florida St. dominated the entire game. The final score of the game ended up 54-28, ending BYU's 18 game home winning streak. BYU lost their top 10 ranking but it was still exciting to see a college football game of that magnitude and hang out with some of the fam!

Nieces and Nephew

We love having our nephew, Braiden and neices, Courtney and Ashley visit because we get to do a lot of fun things with them. When they got in Cedar, the first thing they wanted to do was come and see the puppies. We laughed when little Ashley would try and sneak up to a puppy and pet it, but once the puppy would turn towards here she would start screaming and run as the puppy followed. She was so cute with them!
After the visit, Courtney kept hinting around about taking a puppy home but her mom was always quick to say "I dont think so". The kids sure did love playing and chasing the puppies all over the house.
We also went tubing a couple of times while they were here just before the snow started to melt off. The first time we went to the hill behind Cal Ranch because we thought it would be best for the kids, but they even thought it was a bit too small for a tubing hill. Next time, we went in the hills of Fiddler's Canyon. Everyone had a blast! After the kids saw Bryan, Eric, and Mark go down a couple times they got brave and started going down by themselves. I was surprised how fast they got going and how much they loved doing it. The last run of the day Bryan took Courtney down on his lap and when they hit the bottom of the hill they had a major wipe out and that ended the day. Courtney ended up with a little snow burn on her face but she was ok in the end and everyone was worn out and tired when we got home. It was fun having everyone here for the holidays, but it's always sad to see everyone leave and have to return back to our everyday life. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ChRiStMaS!

We had an exciting and busy Christmas this year. On Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with Mark's family at Grandma and Grandpa Oliver's. We ate a great dinner made by Grandma O., opened gifts, and played guitar hero world tour all night. It was fun to be around all of the brothers and sisters and get to hang out.
It was great to see the three littler ones open their gifts and be so excited.
Christmas morning we woke up and went to my mom and dad's. All of the sisters came this year with their families and we had Grandma and Grandpa Owens and Aunt Donna as well. It was a packed house but we had tons of fun while they were all here. We opened all of our gifts from mom and dad and everyone else before breakfast. Mark and I got Rock Band 2 for our ps3, lots of Christmas tree decorations, little things for our house, and a snack jar for the dogs. We ended up playing Rock Band all week and now have some ROCKERS in the family...even a few that we wouldn't have expected! :) Our Christmas was amazing this year...the gift exchanging was fun, but most of all we enjoyed the memories and time we were able to share with our families during this special time of year!

Puppies, Puppies, Puppies...

On Tuesday, Nov. 25, Ollie had her puppies! At five in the morning, Mark heard some squeeling coming from the garage so he went down and found Ollie with two newborn puppies. We were so excited because we had planned our entire weekend before around her and she finally went into labor early that morning. After getting her settled down in her whelping box, she gave birth to puppies until two that afternoon. It was an exhausting day, but it was also very exciting to finally have them be born. We were there the rest of the way with Ollie, rubbing puppies with towels and keeping Ollie comfortable. We lost a couple, which was sad to see, but in the end we ended up with five healthy pups! Three males and two females... This last week has been lots of fun watching them grow and crawl around with their eyes still shut...but, they do seem to always find Ollie to eat. On Monday, we took the pups to the vet where they got their tails docked and dewclaws removed. It was so sad to see them go through the pain but they do look like true German Shorthairs with their short stubby tails now! We are proud of Ollie for being such a good mommy and we better give Raz his props because he did everything that we needed him to do! We are lucky to have such special dogs!!!

Our New Home!

We purchased our new home in October and finally got all moved in this past month. We were just curious about what was on the market and after walking through it and evaluating the value, we had no doubt that we wanted to be there. We put in a bid and outbid three other individuals and after a few weeks of working with our broker we were relieved when everything went through.

It took a lot of work and help to move all of our things out of storage and place our new furniture in the places we wanted them. After all was finally moved in it was a lot of fun for us to decorate and put everything into place. I was excited to decorate my kitchen and dining room with all of the cute things that my mom has been buying me for birthdays and Christmas' since longer than I can remember!
Mark, Jeff, and their dad poured us a back porch and sidewalk a couple days before we moved in. Mark and Bryce laid sod for a couple of days so the backyard would be finished so we could bring our dogs home. It looks really good! Thanks for your help guys!

We are so happy that we have our own place...We are grateful that we were able to stay with my parents for a few months and save up so we could purchase our new home. We love it! :)

Congratulations Jeff and Shayla Oliver!!! Sept. 6, 2008

Summer 2008

After working overtime at the ice company, we still found time to have a lot of fun this summer.

One of our favorite pass time activities is taking our dogs to different Southern Utah lakes and go fishing . Ollie loves to watch Mark cast his line out and stands at his side as he reels in the fish.

In August, my sister Becky and her kids came down from Portland and stayed for a week. We love having my nieces and nephew around 'cause they keep us laughing and always on our toes.

We had fun going down to Quail Lake with Mark's lil brother/sisters and my nephew/nieces. They had lots of fun as we took out the waverunners, boat, and tubes...Some of us were out in the sun a little too much and we paid for it!!!

After all the fun in the sun, we hate to see the warm weather leave...but, we are excited for the holiday season and time to spend with all of our family and friends!