Life gets away.....

In the shuffle of life, keeping up on our doings seems to get away from us.  I just looked at posts that have been started and never finished and there is a lot of them! In order to remedy that it is about time we started to be better at posting. So, here is a little update on the Dills.

Michael is in school this semester. He is working hard, studying a lot and only had 7 classes left to take before he graduates in July. He no longer works at Taco Bell (as of last April or so). He now works as a TA on campus. He is always on the hunt for a new adventure for us to go on, and is very good at encouraging me to follow my dreams. I simply adore this boy. He is so handsome and caring that sometimes I stop and ask myself how I ever got so lucky.

I am not in school this semester, but will be in January. I have 8 classes left to take before I graduate in July. I am currently working up a few surprises that I will blog soon enough. I love staying at home and literally crafting almost all day every day, taking care of my Mdill, and being able to spend time watching my niece Nora. This semester off has been the answer to many many prayers. I have been able to work on and strengthen me.  

Together we love adventures. I think anyone that knows us knows that we are always on the hunt to do something fun. There are a lot of recent adventures we could share, but I won't bore you with tons of photos and whatnot. Rather, I'm going to share one picture my sister Amy took of us recently. I think it sums us up pretty well.

Needless to say, we are happy, healthy, and chugging right along. Yes, we do have our trials, heartaches, and rough days. But, despite those things we wouldn't change our lives from where we are and what we are doing. 

Look forward in the future to posts about things we've been up to in the past and things we will be doing in the future. 

Blog Address Change

So, this is Jenny and this is me saying I updated my blog address. After 2 years of marriage I have changed it to....... drumroll please.....

http://jennydill.blogspot.com/

Real original I know. So if you have visited my blog and an error pulled up you can quit worrying and now I'm still out there in the blogging world.

Double up...

We love love love double dates. That's right. double dates are so much fun. With so many of our friends moving away to far away places like Washington, California and even far away Utah we miss double dates! But this last weekend we decided we had enough!!! We were going on a double date. We got together with my childhood friend Lora (she is the best!) and her husband Jared and went out to the Olympic Oval. It was so much fun! We raced, skated, raced, skated backwards, raced and skated some more until our feet were sore and we were starving. Then off to Applebee's we went. It was a lovely night and reminded me how much I love good friends.

A Memorial Day of Memories...

This last Sunday and Monday was one for the history books. In spite of the constant rain that we experienced in Eastern Idaho all weekend long, we packed up the car to go camping. I was determined to go and no amount of rain was going to stop me. Amy came up for the weekend and Lara is all up for our crazy adventures. It was a delightful time. Some of my personal favorites of the trip include the following:
-The campground hosts face when we pulled up and I told him we were ready for the rain and cold.
- Michael taking over chopping wood after I axed my finger.
- Hot chocolate.
- The perfectly cooked tin foil dinners. 
- The enthusiasm everyone had.
- The skunk we were initially intrigued by but soon turned to irritation with. He even chased Amy and I resulting in us hiding out in the car.
- The fact that we attempted to build a fire in the pouring rain.
- The prayer that stopped the rain.
- Michael's que for thunder.
- Lara reaching for a flaming mallow on the end of my roasting stick.
- Spotting a bear. Living with a skunk. Hanging out with a fox.
- The quote "I've been training for this my entire life!"
- Picnics by the outhouse along the Scenic Byway.
- Using a paper towel as toilet paper.
- Amy's hideous green pants that I made her take off before we could go to Mesa Falls.
- Signing in as Bill and Jeanie from Iowa with our 5 kids at Mesa Falls.
- Using my new sleeping bag in a real case scenario. (Up to this point it had only been tested indoors.)
- Forgetting about homework for a day.
- Being with family.
- Using the outhouse. Call me crazy but it's all part of the experience. And thanks to the camphosts these bad boys were spotless.

It simply was a grand old time. I love making memories!

Be glad you can only see our upper halves.... I'm the only one looking ridiculous here.

Straight up down pour.... Yes that's an umbrella over the fire... what's wrong with that?

SO delicious.

There is a skunk behind me.... This is right before we darted for us.

My love... Mdill 06 ;)

Being All Homemaker-ish

 So in an effort to be all homemaker-ish we decided to give making our own laundry detergent a shot. It is actually quite simple and works great. To buy everything we needed to start up (like a borax, washing soda, a large pot and grater) it cost about 20 bucks. All the stuff lasts for quite awhile so we will be making this for quite awhile with that little amount of what we bought.

We got the recipe for the detergent here.

Enjoy some pictures from our adventure!

Most of the Ingredients

Grating the Soap

Cooking the Laundry Detergent

All in all it was a success. Due to having a smaller pot, we weren't able to add all of the water into the pot at the end, so our detergent is a little thicker than it probably should be.

Another Adventure...

Being off track from school is quite wonderful. Yesterday Michael and I went to run a few things to the Post Office. It was our only little errand. Michael insisted that we didn't go home. So, we made a stop at the D.I. just to see if there were any unforseen treasures, but the darn place was practically empty. I've seriously never seen it that bare. Our treasure seeking was very short lived. Michael still didn't want to go home. So I told him I would take him to a geological sight.... that's right ladies and gents the Teton Dam. We began driving and once we passed this little beauty... 

 

....we just couldn't resist not to keep on driving. Oh Idaho! So that's what we did. We just kept on driving right past that Dam and onto bigger and better things. 

Those beauties to be exact. The drive was absolutely beautiful. There was hardly any snow compared to what I've seen in past winters, but the small amount of white with the yellow poking through was perfectly perfect!

Yup we kept on going and going and going and got closer and closer and closer. The drive was very relaxing, had great tunes, and great great company.

I loved going over the pass and seeing all the backcountry skiers out skiing and the fun trails they left behind. It only made my desire to learn to ski even greater, my fingers are still crossed that I can go sometime this season.

And here we are folks, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We went into town square, walked around for an hour or so, sipped a hot cocoa, stopped at the candy store (if you know us you know we have a very pathetic addiction to candy and candy stores), and then got back on the road so we could make it over the slippery pass before dark.
The drive home from Jackson was just as pretty, if not more so, than the ride there. The sun was setting, the moon was rising, and our whim turned out pretty awesome. Here are a few more pictures of the ride back. Now no judging, I realize these pictures aren't really all that great, but hey I was in a moving vehicle!

And last but not least we did visit that Dam...

very merry belated Christmas!

I really really wanted to send out a Christmas Card this year, but dagnabit... They can get to be quite expensive, so here is my card I created weeks ago, but never got out. Merry Christmas from our home to yours!