Road Trip

Ben and I were so lucky we were able to take some time off together and enjoy each other's company. Since being done with school and NOTHING to do right!! (only kidding we have plenty to do) But to celbrate me finishing up with school, we both felt that we needed a little time to just relax get away from Boise, and just be with each other. So we decided to take a road trip to southern Utah to Zion National Park in Springdale, UT. We both took 8 days off and hit the road on November 12th. It took 8 hours to get there. We stayed in Springdale for 3 nights at the Driftwood Lodge! This place has some pretty amazing views and rock formations. Lots of hiking trails and some pretty scary drop offs!

I had lots of fun enjoying the company of my husband. As you all know, for the last three years while going through school we felt we hardley even got to see each other! There were lots of fun places to eat, and some great hiking trails! We wish we could have brought our doggie along, as he would have loved the hikes and water. But we found out that doggies were not allowed in the National park. So I guess its best that he stayed home with his uncle Marc.

On our way home we had a long drive as we had a few extra days before we had to go back to work and real life. So why not just keep driving to McCall? So that day we spent 12 hours in the car driving. But as always McCall was fun and Ben helped his dad finish up a car port that he had started building.

Any way here are some of my favorite photos from our vacation!
TTFN!

Boise Temple Open House

The Boise temple has been closed for almost a year, for extensive remodling. I am so excited that it is about to re-open again! Ben's family and I all had the oportunity to walk throught the NEW Boise temple just a few days ago. They did such a wonderful job on all the upgrades. It was beautiful before but it is even more beautiful today. Inside they updated everything. There is dark wood finshings all around. All of the floors are so shiny and bright. They replaced the gray and white marble on the outside of the temple with white granite from China. It looks very updated and modern. Words can not justfy how amazing it is. Any way it looks spectacular. I encourage all of you to walk through the Temple during the open house. The open house is now until November 10th. Anyone can walk through the temple and see all the rooms, before it is dedicated again.

I learned a thing or two about our temple here in Boise. It was first built in 1984, and dedicated at the time by Gorden B. Hinckley in May. Since I was not even born yet during this time. My two older sisters remember walking through the first open house that was held during that time. They have talked about those things they could remember at such a very young age. They remembered putting on the booties to cover their shoes, so that the carpet would stay clean.

The Boise Temple is currently the 27th operating temple out of 139 temples total. There are also 15 temples under construction right now, and 14 more temples to be built including the Meridian Idaho temple. This brings the grand total of temples all around the world to 168. The Boise temple was the second Temple to open in Idaho after the Idaho Falls temple. I think it is amazing that I belong to a church that is all over the world. It is a true testiment of how true our church is.

The Temple will be redicated November 18th, and will re-open Tuesday November 20th for ordinance work. I am very excited for the temple to be functional again. Can't wait to go back.

Here are a few photos of the evening.

Any untill next time TTFN!!

McCall Idaho

Both Ben and I were able to escape from the real world for a few days and spend some time in McCall, Idaho. It was very much needed! After finishing up with school, starting a new job and to have just passed my Ultrasound physics test. We were all just needing a little break from it all.

Ben's parents were able to score a sweet deal on a cabin in McCall last year in November. So we have been trying to escape to McCall just as often as we can. With my old job at IMI I always had to work the weekends. With my new job I get every weekend off, that is if I am not on call, which isn't very often either just about once a month!

Ben spent alot of the time getting stuff ready for the winter by gathering up fire wood. I've never seen my husband cut down a tree before. It was pretty exciting watching a big tree fall from the sky down to earth. He has had lots of practice cutting down trees by working at the golf course. As tress fall down there everytime there is a big windstorm. He is quite the handy man, he can pretty much do anything!!

While Ben was out cutting up wood, I had a relaxing time inside!

Here are a few photos of the beautiful cabin, and the wonderfull week that we had. As always its always hard to capture a good photo when Ben is actually smiling! as he hates pictures so he usually runs when the camera comes out!

Any way TTFN injoy some pics!

Holy moly what happend to this blog!

WOW ok, I have really been slacking. Its been over a year since I have updated this thing!! How terrible. Well alot of things have happend over the passed year. We bought a new vehicle in May. Which we needed desperatley. We ended up getting a 4 door F150 White ford truck (its a Lariat). Which I get to drive!! I love it! It is a great vehicle! Ben likes it cuz he gets to do the things he wants with it! Like hauling his ATV'S around and such! And I like it cuz it will be a good family car once we start a family! (Should be very soon!) I absolutly love the enterior of the car, it has black leather seats, and lots of leg room in the back seat. My favorite feature of the truck is the heated and AC seats!! Yep it has cheek chillers and cheek warmars!! I love it.

What else happend hmm. I FINALLY finished up with school! I finished with my Bachelors degree in Radiography with an emphasis in Diagnostic Medical Sonography. Which means I am an Ultrasound tech. Well almost not quite but I am eligible to sit for my registries to become one!! To be an offical Sonographer I have to take Ultrasound physics and one other exam. I have one down and what a relief that has been to have PASSED Ultrasound physics. It was a difficult one and hopefully the next registries to come will get easier and easier! I would like to thank EVERYONE for their help and support while getting ready for that exam, you all know how hard I can get on myself when it comes to taking tests. So thanks for all your words of encouragement and study materials. I would not have been able to do it with out ya!!

It has been pretty exciting to be all done with school!! After all those long days in clinic, work and never really getting to catch up with my hubby. It's finally all over!! I am really enjoying my new time that I have with my hubby. Its like I have almost started a new relationship with him and as always what a GREAT husband I married. I am figuring out I can have a real life instead of school and work overtaking it.

I started a NEW job!! I am totally loving it!! I now work at the St. Alphonsus in Nampa as a Sonographer. I am learning new things everyday, gaining confidence in myself while scanning, and getting faster and faster everyday. I didn't want to lose my X-Ray skills that I learned so I still hold a PRN position with Intermountain Medical Imaging. So I can pick up an x-ray shift when I want and make a few extra bucks!!

Lets see what else.... Ben had his 31st birthday on Sept 19th. I was able to meet him for lunch on his birthday and take him out to his favorite pizza joint! We celebrated our 7 year weeding anniversary on Sept. 23. Wow it has been 7 years, really it feels like we just got married. How wonderful my husband is!! He is such a hard worker and has done a lot these past years.

We have been doing some updating to our little humble abode. We finally ripped out our groose old carpet that has been in our house for WAY to long. We got some new carpet installed in our upstairs bedrooms, hallway and stairs. Ben worked really hard to get all new basboards put in. It looks awesome! As I said before he is so AWSOME!

Well thats good for now! I am sure there were things I missed but you are probably tired of reading all this stuff any way!! Pictures to fallow soon! you know of our NEW truck, Carpet and baseboards, my Diploma and other things I can find to post. I need to start doing better at taking pictures too so that I have stuff to blog about!!

Any way TTFN!

My Little Brother Got Hitched Too!

My little brother found the girl of his dreams and they were married for time and all eternity in the Twin Falls Temple on August 5th 2011. They are a very cute couple and everyone can tell they are two little love birds!! Congratulations Kurt and Janaye I wish you the best of luck, and I am very happy for the both of you.








The above picture are two happy parents of the groom!!


In the above and below pictures the little girl is Janaye's little sister she needed hugs from both her sister the beautiful bride that she is and of course from the handsome groom!!



Ben and Marshall hanging out before the bride and groom made there grand exit from the temple doors!!



I have to apologize for the quality of the images that were taken at the reception. I had accidental sent the camera home with my husband. So all I had to take pictures with was my cell phone. But they are not too bad to say the least!!




Here we have the amazing wedding cake that my mother and I worked so hard on. Really I didn't do much, she did most of it!! She is amazing when it comes to wedding cakes. She knows how to make a picture perfect wedding cake. One picture was taken while all the lights were off during the reception, the other was taken with the lights on so that one can appreciate how the color stands out in the light!


Good luck to both of you!! You two are a beautiful couple and welcome to the family Janaye!! Have fun!!

My Sister Got Hitched!!

My oldest sister, Nicole, got hitched on 7/1/2011. It was a smashing party!! The decorations were awesome, it had a shabby schiek look to it. They had these really cool old rusty doors that were connected to eachother. Each door pannel was different. They had one glass pannel door that hat there last name etched into it.

They had a display of three generations of wedding dresses, my great grandmother Hazel Sckogsberg, my grandma Lois Hartley, and my mothers dress. I learned the my great grandmother Hazel elopped to get married!! Her wedding dress was not traditional, in fact back then often times they wore thier best dress that they owned, her dress was brown in color and it looked neat up against two off white wedding dresses.

The colors my sister picked out were Lime green, navy blue and Ivory. All the colors looked great together!! Her wedding dress was amazing, it was also Ivroy!! Not to mention how awesome the cake looked!! Of course we would get the best wedding cake maker in town to do the cake! No one else is better than my Mom when it comes to making cakes, she is pretty amazing!!

I wish my sister the best of luck and hope that she is happy, she has waited a long time for this day to happen, so I hope it was all worth it to her!! LOVE ya sis, Hope you and Brandon live happily ever after!!

Things you've missed!! Or I forgot to mention for that matter!!

I had another birthday on the 10th of June here it is a month past and I am just now blogging about it! This year I turned 26. It feels like the older I get the birthdays seem to come faster and faster each year. My birthday was great I took the entire day off from work, Ben was fortunate enough to take at least a half day off from work and we were able to enjoy each others company! We first went shopping for some new running shoes.
You see since I have been on my feet a lot from all of my clinical hours from school I developed plantar fasciitis in my left foot from the worn out shoes that I have. Since I have a little time this summer I thought I would take advantage of that time and run a little, the only thing was that my running shoes were also worn out, luckily my birthday came just in time.

Next stop was the indoor miniature golf course. I had never been here before but it was pretty psycadelic.
This is no ordinary miniature golf course, it is a black light course, the carpet was crazy, with some pretty weired art work on the walls as well! They had 3D glasses that we could have worn while we golfed but since I have a problem with motion sickness I thought that probably would not be a good idea. we had lots fun and I got a hole in one on one of the wholes.

Later we went to dinner at Tucanos and ate way too much, and of course they had to sing the birthday song to me in Portuguese(how imbarising!! They made me stand up and shake a tamberine). Since we ate too much we had no room for dessert at the time so we went home and rested a bit.

After a couple hours of rest we enjoyed a tasty treat from Cold Stone Creamy. I couldn't go with out ice cream on my birthday!!
We then called it a day and hit the pillow for the night. It was a fun 26th birthday and was thankful for the time that Ben and I were able to have.

Its offical I am a Registered Technologist in Radiography

One whole week ago I took a 3 hour exam and lived to tell the tale!! The x-ray board exam is 220 questions, testing our knowledge in 5 different categories including:

Radiation Protection
Equipment Operation and Quality Control
Image Production and Evaluation
Radiographic Procedures
Patient Care and Education


My overall score in all of the areas was a passing score!! Once the test is submitted the ARRT gives us a preliminary score to let us know wither we had passed or failed. I let out a big sigh of relief when I had seen that I had a passing score. Then usually in one week the ARRT sends us the official score with our certificate and our credentials card, which I just received yesterday. The exam was held at a general testing center, where you are monitored the entire time to make sure you are not trying to cheat in any way. At this testing center there could be other people in the testing room taking different types of exams as well. Prior to the exam they tell us what we can and can not bring into the testing room. They had suggested to bring a sweater or jacket as it is hard to make everyone happy with the temperature with in the room, so I brought my sweatshirt. I started with it on and then probably 10-15 minutes into the exam I had to take if off, I swear it was 100 degrees in there I was so hot!! Any way I am so excited to start putting my knowledge and skills to the test when I start my first shift as a Registered Technologist.

Radiologic Sciences Class of 2011

Well I have hit a major mile stone in my life today!!! I am proud to say that I have completed my Assocaite Degree in the College of Health Sciences in Radiologic Technology!!! Next step Bacholors in Health Sciences in Sonography only one more year left and then onto real life no more balancing my time between school, work, Legedu and my AWESOME husband Ben.


I have to say thank you to all of those who have helped me along the way to reach this goal of mine! My husband has been the greatest throughout these two years in the radsci program, he has been my rock and my fondation, the one person who has helped keep me together through all of the studying, not so great test scores and some really good test scores and homework assignments, not to mention the household duties!! Thanks Love for all that you have and do for me!!