Indispensable Events

Well I still haven't figured out how to get more pictures on here, which is why we've been a bit absent lately, but here are the recent happenings:

My good good friend Katie came to visit us a few weekends ago! I was very excited to have her come down.  We watched a few good movies, had a successful trip to the St. George Temple (on our first attempt at taking her it was closed when we got there), and went to Zions NP where we did the emerald pools hike and saw deer and a heron.  I think Steven got a taste of what it was like to have two of me around seeing as how Katie and I could almost be soul clones.  Don't think he fancied it too much :) but he had a good weekend too.

Later that week was the wonderfully awesome Holiday of St. Patrick's!! After two not-so-great attempts (one where I forgot and left them in the oven for three hours and they turned to coal..), I managed to make decent Croquettes (mashed potatoes and other things fried in oil).  We had those, roasty potatoes, shepherds pie, and our neighbors brought Irish soda bread, banoffee pie (Thank you Emily!), a chocolate pie, and green grapes! We had our wonderful friends over for an Irish dinner (no corned beef and cabbage), games and green prizes.  We hope everyone had as much fun as we did; we love getting together with everyone!

That following weekend Steven's Parents came to visit!  We both had kind of odd work schedules, but we managed to have a great weekend.  We got to see a few good movies, went to Zions, got to finally see Frontier Homestead state park (it is very interesting, I really enjoyed it!), Steven took them to Old Irontown, and mostly just got to chat and have fun.  We made orange roughy for John's birthday; it's a yummy fish. We also got to have a great dinner at Steven's aunt and uncles home in Hurricane with them and his other aunt Jan.  They all have some amazing stories an it is always awesome to get together with them.  We are very grateful John and DeAnne came to visit, and especially for their incredible generosity!

This past Thursday we drove up to Salt Lake for a triple surprise party :) This coming April my Dad, my uncle Larry, and my Uncle Ian will all turn the big 50.  In order to catch them off guard the family decided to have a surprise party in March.  My aunt rented a room at Noah's (event center) and we decorated the place with the classic black/over the hill theme.  Friends and family of all three old timers were invited.  I think they were quite surprised :) There was tons of good food and cake! A lot of people were there that I haven't seen in a long time.  It was a lot of fun, and even though we had to head back Friday morning I'm really glad we got to go.  

So there it is, lots of great happenings going on in Cedar land.  Other than that it's school and work as usual :) Today in ward conference we had a great lesson on the Atonement and how we need to apply it our lives every day.  It's not just for our sins, but also for our inadequacies; and no matter what it's always there for us.  It made me very excited for General Conference this weekend!