Christmas with the Nethercotts

We spent Christmas with the Nethercotts. We got a lot of presents! My parents sent us some, my Aunt Juli sent us some, My brother and sister-in-law Bear and Lisa sent us some, Aaron and I gave each other a few and Aaron's parents gave us some. We were pretty well off this year. It was nice to be thought of by so many people. We got some fun gifts this year, nerf guns, iPod touch (ok ok, so that was our Christmas present to us from us ... using some of our Christmas money), a new HD webcam, chocolates mmm, oh yeah, and we found out I'm expecting!

Needless to say, it was an eventful Christmas.

I found out on Wednesday that I was expecting. Aaron had no idea but was already on his way to pick me up with his parents. He had been in Star Valley since Monday morning and I was supposed to go down to SV with a friend Christmas eve. Yeah, I caved in and cried and begged Aaron to come pick me up. So he came down Wednesday afternoon with his parents. I had gotten home from the doctors about 2 hours earlier and told him while I was still in shock. We celebrated with a temple trip and later that week: dinner at a local SV restaurant.

We kept it a secret from everyone till Christmas day. We had Aaron's mom read a statement that read: "Aaron and Brittany have ordered a custom-made gift. It's mostly for themselves, but they've decided to share with the family as well. Obviously, it didn't make it in time for Christmas, but it will be DELIVERED in 9 MONTHS." There were a chorus of "Oh! I get it" from his sisters, but his oldest sister and his parents got it right away.

Then we opened some more presents and I skyped my family. I read them the same statement and mom screamed! She then yelled the news to everyone in that house. We called other family members and told them the good news.

Christmas day was my first Christmas away from my family. I learned some fun, new traditions. They have a Christmas Eve candle-lit dinner, then we read Luke account of Christ's birth and sang some carols in between verses. Then, he Nethercotts open a gift Christmas eve. Before Christmas, they pick out a family member's name and give them a gift. That's the gift they open Christmas Eve. Then Christmas morning, the stockings are all filled and laid out on the kitchen table and there are presents from Santa at the front door. We opened our stockings and had fun with the things inside then we all opened Santa's gift: Nerf guns! Then we took turns opening presents. I missed a few of my families traditions, but it was still fun to learn new ones and be with the Nethercott family.

Here is Tiffany opening our gift to her. We made an elephant out of towels and gave it sunglasses and a matching earring and necklace set. She opened it up and said "It's Johnny Bravo!" ha ha ha. Oh well, it's the thought that counts right?

Here is a picture of Aaron ready to cross-country ski while his sisters went snowshoeing. How fun! Sadly, I didn't get to go because I wasn't feeling too hot but it did look loads of fun!

mmm mmm, what a HANDSOME man!! (In my bejeweled sunglasses!)

We're excited for our new baby and taking care of it as best we can! It is our own little Christmas miracle =)

Happy holidays everyone!

Subtle Hints ... never work

Is this subtle enough? (That's HIS backpack) Communication is key =)

In unrelated, yet important thanks:
Thank you Sarah! WE LOVE OUR HEADER!!!
Check out what she has to offer at http://proofred.blogspot.com/

Supercalafragilisticexpialadocious

So my recent trip to DI has been a great one!

Let me start with what has been happening recently …

I've been wanting a cat. We can't have a cat. So I've been feeding the strays. Oops :P. There are four of them and pictures are to come.

Ok ok ok, so let me defend myself. Cats ARE the pets #1 as a transmitter for disease and parasites. ESPECIALLY feral cats. You want to know why? Their DIET! They eat rats and mice … need I say more? So lately, the tenants of Mainstreet station have been complaining about the feral cats. They are concerned about them pooping in the playground (Legitimate concern). BUT nobody is willing to do anything about it! So I've been feeding them, hopefully to reduce their parasite load. Then once they become friendly, and feel comfortable around humans, I'll try to find them good homes that will take them in and hopefully spend some money giving them shots and spayed/neutered. If we don't do anything about them, they'll just reproduce and end up in the pound and stay in a little box until they are gassed. So … in my efforts to help these cats get used to me, I've made them a little bed for the winter.

This is what my DI trip was for. I got a THICK wool blanket (about the size of a saddle blanket) and folded it in 4ths. Under that, I put a thin fleece blanket folded in 6ths. All for 6 dollars! I actually tilted a flat cart-like thing we have on our porch over the bed so they have some wind protection. =) The little Siamese kitten has been sleeping there since I put it in! Too cute.

Now here comes the best part of my trip!

MOVIES!!! Each for $2!!!!

Pretty much the most AWESOME purchase!!

Oh yeah, and I got a neck pillow (You know, the little U shaped pillows for travel?!) Memory foam …. Wait for it …. $3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

$20 total. MAN I love DI!

Why'd it snow, why'd it snow, why'd it snow?

So it's now Brittany Nethercott official: Winter has hit Rexburg. I was in denial Saturday and rebelling with a light fall jacket. Now the winter coats, gloves, scarfs and hats are out. I'm reminded of an EFY song "Go bring them in from the Plains." There is a line from that song I sing every time I go outside. "The chilling wind cuts to the bone, I cannot feel my feet."

However, this time makes me grateful for the things I have: comfy microfiber blankets, central heating instead of a stove, warm clothing, electric blankets, down comforters, heating in my car, wool socks, thermal underwear, boots, Cute winter coats, and a husband with a heart so warm, it melts my own. It also makes me grateful that I was not involved in the settling of this area before central heating!!

So even though we have entered the lone and dreary world known as Rexburg, I will (as Monty Python said it best) "Always look on the bright side of life." Even IF I de-snow my car every morning of OCTOBER!!

My new hobby

Lately, I've been spending a little bit of my time volunteering at the local cat shelter. I LOVE IT! There are about 100 cats. They're in a small house (a little bit bigger than a trailer I suppose). There is a closed off room to the side where the kittens go. It's so fun. I really enjoy spending my time there. All we need now is a "prescription" for a therapy cat and we can have one in our apartment =) We'll see about that one though.

Simply homemade

Ok, so it's not so homemade. But it's partially homemade! I wanted a floating shelf for my spices so we could get into our small cupboard. So I went to DI! I found TONS of shelves! After a few minutes (Ok so like 20) I settled on a dirty, dingy, 3-tiered, wooden shelf. I came home and sanded the sucker and gave it several coats of navy spray paint to match my valences. All and all, it was a good buy =)

Shelf = $3

Spray paint = $2

Sanding sponge = $3

Having less congested cupboards and oven tops? = Priceless

Kingdom Anamalia

We have experienced exciting things from kingdom Anamalia today.

The day started with the equine family. We learned how to saddle our horses and we rode in circles today: Good experience

The next experience was in the feline family. We dissected cats today! I was the only one doing the dissections because everyone else was scared to cut open poor fluffy. (I think next lab I'll steal Amanda's idea and create a cat themed mix CD to play during the next dissection. Just to tick off the wooses.) Overall: Mixed experience

Next we approach the order coleoptera (Family and species unknown to us as we are not willing to get close enough to it to key it out, we'll ask the entomology teacher) We found it on the ground and took immediate interest. Our home teacher is taking a class that has him collecting various bugs. (I'm hooking him up with a Madagascar hissing cockroach tomorrow from my boss) So we called him up and told him about this beetle. He said he had too many beetles. Buut this bug was too cool to pass up. Below is our attempt to suffocate him. We'll see how long he takes to die.

The video will be posted soon!

Yes, we ARE nerds.

23rd first day of school!

It's our first day of Fall semester 2010. Ok, so our first day was a week ago, but still. Aaron's classes are pretty tough. He's taking Immunobiology, Pathophysiology, Physics 1 (For pharmacy school prereqs), and the upper level anatomy class. On top of that, he is the TA for 2 general chemistry labs. I haven't seen him much since school started. I am taking Stream ecology, Animal Anatomy and Physiology, Genetics, Evolution, horsemanship, and senior seminar.

Stream ecology wont be too challenging. I took limnology a few semesters ago. It is the study of lakes and their ecosystems. Every day we would learn a concept and my teacher would say, "And the same thing applies to streams, but brother Stricklan will get mad at me if I tell you about it." So needless to say, Stream Eco. will not be a complete challenge. Animal anatomy and physiology is interesting too. I took human anat. and phys. during the 7-week break. So, this class has been easy thus far. I almost hope this class will bring on a challenge. Genetics will be my most challenging class. Nuff said.

Evolution is really awesome so far. We've spent the 1st 3 days talking about the church's stand on evolution. It's been really cool. Basically, we've established that Adam IS our common ancestor. God created Adam and he WAS the FIRST human on the earth. MY theory is that the early hominids were "human-like" creatures that did not have agency, thus not human. But there is still much to be explored in this class. It's really cool to hear everyone's opinions and my teacher's opinion as well. It's important to have an open mind on such a sensitive subject.

Horsemanship is AWESOME! We've spent the 1st class period learning about how to gain trust and friendship with our horse. My horse thinks I'm boring. I'll have to work on that. the 2nd day, we were assigned horses, haltered them, brushed them, cleaned their hooves and took them in the arena and "played". My horse is really pushy and he keeps getting all up in my space no matter how much I push him away. He'll be a tough little cookie.

Senior seminar is in place of my internship. It's a 1 credit class, and I can't exactly fit it into my schedule this semester or next (or even last semester for that matter). So my teacher just added me in and is letting me take it online. I am basically going to write a lot of papers.

On top of ALL that, I am now a lab TA for the botany labs. There are 3 labs a week (about 7 hours a week) I sit in on the classes (about 3 hours a week) and I clean up the lab materials and set up lab. He also wants me to do a study group every week for an hour or so. Soooo I am the TA, the stockroom assistant, and the Tutor. It's fun and it will let me quit the testing center. FINALLY!!!!!!

Well that is our lives thus far. I'll post picctures of the JON SCHMIDT concert we went to as well as the ABBA-MANIA concert we will go to.

We love life, we love each other, and we love you!

Friday Night's Date

Aaron and I went to the duck pond for our date night. We had a few old tortillas and a LOT of bread heals in our fridge. The ducks were pretty well fed that day. The geese even lost interest, but those ducks and teals fought for our little scraps.

Look at all those ducks!!

After feeding the ducks, we rode our bikes back home and drew pictures of our evening. It was fun to draw and color. Aaron didn't like that last part, but he participated like the trooper he is. He draws excellent bikes!

This is Aaron's drawing and mine is underneath. I drew the little ducklings that looked so innocent and the older ducks fighting for bread and tortillas. =)

Here's a video of out Tortilla Toss. That was our favorite!

PCAT Love

This was Aaron's "PCAT Love". I had one of these by the bed every morning leading up to the PCAT. We find out the results in a month! On the last day, I gave him a massage. I was on my knees for about an hour and ended up twisting my knee and messing up my ligaments .... oops. But Aaron's tesion dissappeared.





When he came home, this was on the door with a SKOR bar. =) He enjoyed that.

Missin my Riley and Eliza

I am going to miss these guys so much! Their daddy got a job out in Iowa and they moved out a week ago. They're the cutest littel guys! We got to watch them for 2 full days while their parent's packed up their apartment. They are searching for a house right now. We are wishing them the BEST of luck!
She told me the other day that Riley (the little boy) asked for "Aaron" (Which means Brittany) and that he wanted to play "The umbrella game." It's where we hide under the umbrella and sing "I like to look for rainbows, whenever there is rain" and squirt the umbrella with water and watch it drip down.

Tuesday"s gift

This was Tuesday's gift to Aaron. I put it in his laptop with a few highlighters. When he picked it up for school everything fell out.

It's PCAT week! Aaron takes the PCAT on Saturday and I'll be giving him a little "present" every day to boost his confidence a littl bit. He's so smart and he needs to know it.
This was today's gift. I put the bear right next to his alarm clock (his phone).
He gave a little giggle, put his phone on snooze and went RIGHT back to sleep. Ha ha

Rearrangement

We got home, the apartment was a mess from packing for the trip. So what do we do? We rearrange our room! I love it though!!! Our dirty laundry fits under the bed as well as a lot of things we couln't fit there previously. We got a tall bookshelf for $10 that fits all our books!! Our old one didn't very well. Half of our textbooks didn't fit on it. =(
I love our room and I actually open the blinds now because I love it so much!

Our Trip to Arizona

So ... we went to Arizona for my brother's wedding. We brought our camera ... but didn't take any pictures. On our way home, we stopped in Mexican hat to visit Aaron's sister. So we had a senic drive. Of course, we took pictures of that instead .... we fail at this whole camera business.

Well, here are the pictures we took.

Fire at the INL

There was a huge fire at the INL the other day (ok so like a month ago). But it was sooo sweet. The WHOLE sky gave off this eerie orange glow. It ... was ... AWESOME. You can see how thick the smoke is!



This is the view to the North

This is the view to the South!

Check out that PLUME! This was the only "edge" we could see. It was as far North, East, and West we could see.
Crazy.

Homework is for squares, good thing I'm sharp!

It's finals week! 2 down, 3 to go. I should be studying for the next three. But it doesn't seem so pressing when they are 3 days away .... I'm bad. Oh well. I'll only have to worry about 2 finals weeks everr!! I am way excited.

On a related note, I have my classes set up for next semester!

I'll be taking:

Evolution

Stream Ecology

Genetics

Animal Anatomy and Physiology

Horsemanship I&II

I've had my eye on this horsemanship class for quite some time now, It just never fit into my schedule till now. I'm so excited! The first part requires that we learn how to catch our horse, bond with it, bridle it, and saddle it. Then we learn how to ride at different gaits (Speeds) The second section goes into more techniques and harder riding. I am SO EXCITED!!

These classes will start in September =)

In the meantime:

I am registered for Anatomy and Physiology during that 7-week break. It's going to be intensive and tough, but that's all I will be doing for that break. No biggie. I'm taking this class at the grace of my amazing "mentor/counselor"! He can be a pill (He's the one that openly mocks me in class) but he took compassion on me. If he hadn't okayed this class, I would have had to stay an extra semester for only 4 credits. Not my idea of a good time. Especially when I don't know what the future holds!

I have a new job too. I'll still work at the Testing Center, but just as a sub. People will just call me here and there for shifts. I'll be regularly working as a lab TA for my favorite teacher's Botany class! All I had to do was walk up and talk to him and I got the job! I'm pretty excited for it. It'll be fun and I'll be able to sit down without getting yelled at by my boss!

I'm really excited for these next few semesters. =) BYU-Idaho is such a great place to be! Now let's work on one out East pres. Monson ;)

Love y'all

Moives!

A few weeks ago, our date night was Toy Story 3! Thanks to my dear sweet sister and my awesome mother, we got 2 free tickets. =) So we used them for date night. It was a fun movie. We'll definitely rent it from redbox when it comes out.

Today, we went to see eclipse. This is going to count for date night =) We are going to Island Park with my class this Friday night. We're going to spend the night in the campus' cabin with all my other classmates and their families. It'll be fun.

Anyways, Eclipse was ok. Not the best, but we were chuckling throughout the whole movie. Some of it was cheesy moments, but some were good one-liners. Aaron liked the fact that there was a lot more action in this one. He would. We liked it though. The actors still need some talent but that may never change ;)

Hilarious videos

Watch this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElJFYwRtrH4

Then this one ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIULIJxVr7A&feature=related

This is what we do in my bio techniques lab ..... I love it.

Yellowstone!

Aaron and I went to Yellowstone with the school. It was a lot of fun. Only my third time going too. It was nice to be outside and to be with Aaron.

I hope we get to go again this summer!

Project 52: Quarters

Last night's date night was so much fun! Aaron used to be big in coin collecting, he collected for several years and then stopped when he went on his mission. Since we've been married, his coins had collected dust under our bed. So I bought him some coin books! This week we sorted through all the quarters. Aaron had a lot of quarters. We collected coins from the car, couch and our little coin reserve on the counter.


Here is our entire collection of books. Those sad excuses for bags are from when I separated all of Aaron's coins by book and put them in little makeshift paper bags.




Separating the quarters ...













With our leftover quarters, we went and got icecream!!!











Here is our progress! We did all this in about 2 hours! It was fun though.

Project 52: Living room camp out

Last week, we had a camp out in the living room. It was fun. We almost set up the tent, but decided that wouldn't fit. We pushed back the couch and laid down about 5 layers of blankets. We made some s'mores on the burner (using my old bike wheel's spokes) and watched a movie from Redbox. Simple, but fun. Total cost: $3.38

Project 52: Game Night

First off, we signed our project 52 contract. Go here to see the contract. We added our own little rules too: No phones or computers unless needed for the date and no more than $20 a month. Our first date was a game night with a friend from back home that I haven't seen in a while. We set her up with one of Aaron's old roommates. It was really fun. We even got creative and made our own version of Uno! We made up some new cards using the blank cards in our decks.

The pirates let you switch hands with another player of your choice. The old maid is just that, the old maid. It's unplayable, so If you get stuck with it, you can never play it and lose. But you can swich hands using the pirate, and with our blood uno rules =). We had lots of fun.

We'll keep you updated on our other project 52 dates! I'm so excited to regularly date my husband!

Aaron's Haricut

We eventually shaved it off .....

What’s up with that?

So here's our update. Thursday morning, our car didn't start. We assumed it was the battery (seeing as how we only drive it to campus and back, poor car) so we got our neighbor to jump it for us. While the engine was running, he heard a subtle clanking. It was our timing chain. Uh oh. He recommended a great auto shop, they've been great. I've had so many problems with mechanics here in Rexburg. We're so grateful to live so close to a trustworthy man that knows his cars. We're also grateful we got me a bike last fall. It's come in handy. We're biking everywhere now. It's a great workout! It's also been a great humility work out. It's hard for us to ask for help, so this is good for us to practice! I just hope we'll be able to help them when they need it.

On a side note, school is going great for us. Aaron's got some tough classes, but he is an O-chem lab assistant and he loves it! He was so excited! This will be so good for him, it'll give him a chance to review his O-chem for his PCAT (and get paid for it). I only have 12 credits this semester. The tests are a little hard, but that's about the extent of my schooling. I have about 7 required camping trips this semester. I know, me camping?!?! But I go! I'm still working it all out though. We bought a foam pad and Aaron had taught me to set up his tent. I've almost mastered his mummy bag … both times it's unzipped all the way (and the zipper unhooked) in the middle of the night due to the fact that I can't zip it all the way up :P I thought I broke it. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it's too small for me. Ha ha. We'll have to get a sleeping bag for me so that Aaron and I can camp together in Yellowstone this semester!

More is to come, but this is our crazy life so far!

We love you guys!

Haircut

Here you go mom =)