Lately..

As usual, I have not been doing so well at keeping up with blogging. But I thought I'd let you in on a little bit of what's been going on lately.

In May, 2010, Mark and I drove to California for my dad's 50th birthday. We threw him a surprise birthday party in the shed behind my grandma's home. We played games, danced, and had a great time!

Mark celebrated his 25th birthday in 2010. I spent the day cleaning up the apartment and even wrote him a message on the driveway with chalk saying "Happy 25th Birthday Mark" and the numbers 1 through 25 from the sidewalk to the door. Well, while I was cleaning our room, I tried opening the bedroom window but it got stuck and when I tried hitting the corner to open it, I ended up cracking the window and got a really bad cut on my hand. My dear friend, Sandy picked me up and took me to the clinic. I didn't need stitches because it was such a clean cut, but I did have to have it wrapped up for a few weeks after that. I now have an ugly scar on my hand.. but am lucky that it wasn't any worse.

Mark and I went horseback riding with our friends, Will and Sandra, at their friends' house. It was Mark's first time and he did really well.

For our 2nd anniversary, we spent the weekend in Jackson, Wyoming. We went to a Scottish festival and a rodeo. Both were tons of fun!

These are pictures of some of my closest friends in Rexburg! (Kim in the purple, Lindsey and Andrew, and Sandra in the white) We were at a Pampered Chef party.

I decided that I wanted to take pictures of Mark and me with our dogs for our Christmas cards. They turned out amazing! I even got a shot with Mark and I kissing while the dogs touched noses. When the dogs greeted each other I yelled, "kiss!" and we caught it!

The month of December, 2010 brought a member to our family and also took a member from our family. Grace Elizabeth Landes was born December 28th to Brent and Jessica Landes. Sadly, Mark's older brother, Scott Tyler Ensign passed away on December 15th from a rapid battle of a rare cancer that was diagnosed in October. He was just a few weeks shy of his 29th birthday.

The family is wearing lavendar shirts that say "I wear lavendar for my [son/brother]". Lavendar is the universal color for cancer, since Scott's kind didn't have its own color (i.e. pink for breast cancer).

Mark and I moved to Iowa for Winter semester, 2011 to live with his parents while he did an internship at a local community center. We've had a great time and it has definitely been a blessing! We decided to leave Maggie at my parents' house and Mark is counting down the days 'till he gets to see her.

We are so close to Chicago (where Mark grew up). I had never been, so we decided to take a few days to visit and see it. For an early anniversary present, Mark's parents helped us out with some of the hotel/gas costs (I think they just wanted us out of the house so they could get a break from us... just kidding!). On Monday, Mark took me around his old neighborhoods and showed me where he used to live and where he went to school. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we hit the city. We purchased a "City Pass" where we were able to go to different museums and other sites around the city for a low price. On Tuesday, we went to Willis (Sears) Tower and rode the elevator up to the 103 floor and got to look over the city. After that, we went to the Art Museum, Buckingham fountain, Shedd Aquarium, and Navy Pier.

On Wednesday, we were so exhausted from Tuesday that we only made it to the zoo and the Science Museum. If I had to do it all over again.. I'd plan the whole trip for a week.. not two days. Our bodies were so sore from all the things we did that we missed out on the Field Museum, the planetarium and the "Magnificent Mile."

I'm sure I've left out on a few things.. but this is all I have pictures for :)

We're both excited to see how 2o11 turns out. Mark got accepted into an internship program for Spring Semester that BYU–Idaho has at UC Davis in California. He will be living in an apartment with other guys from the school, and I will be living at home with my parents for those few months. After the internship, we'll head back to Rexburg to finish school. Then we'll see where we'll end up after that!