Gettysburg and Mt. Vernon

So I thought I would catch up on the rest of our summer. We went to Pennsylvania for 3 weeks to audit daycare nutrition programs again. It was a good little summer adventure! Our highlights of the trip were going to see Mount Vernon and Gettysburg. They were both really neat! There was so much to see at Mt Vernon and they had a neat museum with George's fake teeth. At Gettysburg we drove around to all the battlefields and they have like a million monuments for each battalion or troop, and each state has a monument too. There was also a really cool museum there too. We got to see Katy and Sean and their girls, which was really fun. The pictures above are the monument where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address and one of the battlefields.
Here we are at a different battle field. Dan is suppose to be trying to shoot me but he didn't do a very good job posing for the picture :)

This was at Mt. Vernon. Dan with our little nieces. How cute

In front of George's house. We took a tour through the house too. It overlooks the Delaware river and is so pretty!

We got back from Pennsylvania the Friday before school started so it was a little crazy getting back to Provo and moved back into our apartment. It is our last semester at BYU and I am sooo excited! Then the plan is to move back to Billings for awhile. So there is an update for the few people who still check our blog!

Montana Mountains

The last two weekends Dan and I went hiking and camping with our families. It was so nice to be up in the mountains. Montana really is so beautiful!

Wedding, Birthday, and Olympics!

Last weekend was super busy and fun! On Friday it was McKenna's wedding. It was a busy day! They got married at the temple at three, and then I went around with them and the photographer taking pictures. It was a fun job except for it was freezing cold! Everyone was complaining that it was colder than the day Dan and I got married. It was rainy and misty and about 40 degrees the whole day. McKenna and McKay didn't seem to mind though! Then we had the reception at the Billings Depot that night. It looked so beautiful. I didn't take too many pictures that day because I was busy running around, but it was super fun! I was so excited because Dan and his brothers sang the Billy Joel song "For the Longest time" at the reception. Here is a picture of McKenna and Annie after she caught the bouquet.

This is Dan's aunt Cyd, her girls, and our nieces Anna and Elizabeth outside the temple.
The on Saturday it was Rylee's birthday! Andrew and Ashley came for the weekend and we spent some time with them. Molly and Tara made Rylee a Candyland cake--it was so cute! Rylee loved it.
Dan's sister Katy and her girls are here in Billings for a couple of weeks, so yesterday we decided to have family Olympics. We played the Wii, air hockey, had a brain-a-thon, and an obstacle course. Here is Dan with Jane. He is so cute with our nieces and nephews. I love to watch him play with them.
Here is Katy and Matt facing off in Wii sword fighting. I have to admit that I won that event, but Dan took the gold overall.
Besides having fun with our families Dan and I have just been working. I can't believe it is already June! This summer is going by so fast!

Catch-up

So I know it has been like five months since I posted last, and I always make goals that I am going to blog more often but usually it doesn't happen. So I won't make any promises! It has been super busy, but things are starting to calm down. This past semester went by so fast. Some of the highlights were a weekend trip to Las Vegas with McKenna (Dan's sister) and her fiance McKay, and I got to go to Washington D.C. with my public health program. It was a super fun to see all of the sights. We are actually home in Billings for the summer. Dan is working at Western Security Bank and I am doing an internship with the health department for my public health program. It has been so nice to have our evenings free to hang out with our families and do relaxing things like watch TV! McKenna is getting married in less than two week here in Billings, so we have been helping with all the planning and are excited for the wedding.


Here is me and a few of my friends that I went to Washington D.C with. We walked soooo much, but we saw all of the monuments and went to all the museums we wanted to! And we also went to a conference, but that definitely wasn't the highlight of the trip. It was also freezing cold!
Here is my family I think at Christmastime. We are living with the Kirkpatricks for the summer, but have had lots of visits so far to my house. Dan is becoming a regular at Thursday night basketball. We visited Ashely and Andrew in Burley one weekend this semester, but are excited to see them over Memorial Day weekend.
Here are some of the Kirkpatrick kids. This was also a picture from Christmas vacation . . . I am kind of a slacker at taking pictures, but hopefully I well have some more coming soon!

Happy Holidayssss!

It has been a really long time since I posted last, and a lot has happened since then! First of all, Dan and I got a new car (well, new to us) because the old Taurus died. It is a Honda CRV and we really like it so far!

Right after school started, we went up to Billings for labor day for my cousin's wedding. Here is Dan playing with our cute little niece Reese.
For Halloween we carved these pumpkins and went to our ward trunk or treat. We missed Chelsea and Cody, and we definitely didn't have the coolest trunk this year!
Thanksgiving at the Stott house! Dan will do anything to get out of a picture, including hiding behind Dallin.
Here we are at the Kirkpatrick's. We had fun playing games, shopping, eating, and of course . . .
Christmas tree hunting. We found a really good tree and brought it all the way back down to Utah! It is so nice to have a fresh Montana tree in our little apartment!
We went to the Christmas devotional last night and walked around temple square. It is getting really chilly and we have had tons of snow the past couple of days! So there you have it, Happy labor day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas!
Besides celebrating these fun holidays, we have been busy with school and work! I have been pleasantly surprised with my masters program. I have really liked my classes and teachers this semester. I also am working teaching weight loss classes and doing nutrition counseling at the Central Utah Clinic, which I love! Dan is still working in the history department and working hard in his business classes. There is an update, if anyone still checks our blog. Hopefully I will post again before three months go by!

Virginia Lovin

Dan and I are back in Provo now, but the past six weekends we have been traveling! Needless to say we have been busy, but I wanted to post these pictures of Dan with our three ADORABLE nieces. We got to visit Katy (Dan's sister) and Sean and their girls in Virginia two weekends in a row during our time working in Philadelphia. It was so fun! This first picture is of Dan and Liz dancing at the Floyd country store. Every Friday night a bluegrass band comes to play at this country store and all of the locals come out for some hillbilly dancing. It was quite entertaining! I think we were the only ones there without a southern Virginia accent.

Katy and the girls came up to visit us in Philadelphia for a few days and we saw all of the sites there. We toured independence hall, saw the liberty bell, and spent some time in Amish country. This is the only picture I got of their visit, but I think it is so precious. Little Jane is only two months old and is the cutest baby I have ever seen!
Our second weekend in Virginia we went to a lake just outside Roanoke and played in the water. It was really fun! Dan and Anna attempted to build a sand castle.

Pilgrimage to Palmyra

Since our last post, Dan and I have left the big apple for the city of brotherly love. Since we spent a month in Philadelphia last summer, we weren't too excited to come back because we have already seen the sites, and don't really like the city in general. So . . . this past weekend we drove up to Palmyra to see all of the Church history sites. It was sooooo cool! We were both very glad we made the trip. For those of you who aren't LDS, this post might not make very much sense to you. If you want to know more I would be glad to explain it though!
Our first stop was the EB Grandin print shop where the first Books of Mormon were printed. A cute old missionary couple gave us a tour and explained how the books were printed and bound back in 1830. The original press and tools they used were still there.
Dan was really excited to see copies of the first Books printed. This picture was on the first floor where the book store was located.
Here is a picture of the outside. I was surprised that the city of Palmyra was really old fashioned looking and there is only one street in the town.
Our next stop was the hill Cumorah. There is a big visitor's center at the bottom with some neat displays. We climbed to the top of the hill where this memorial marks the area where the plates were probably buried.
Our next stop was my favorite: Joseph Smith's old house and the sacred grove. Here we had a cute sister missionary give us a tour and tell us about the rooms in the house and stories of things that happened here. The old log home that these pictures were taken in is not the original, but it was rebuilt exactly like the original and in the same spot. This picture is in one of the bedrooms upstairs where the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph!
Here is the kitchen of the old log home. I was so happy because the sister missionary kept on offering to take our picture, so Dan had to consent to be in them!
This is the Palmyra temple that is just right across the street from the sacred grove.
This is a picture inside the Smith's frame house that they built a few years after they settled in Palmyra. This is actually the original home they lived in, and the one that Joseph brought the plates home to. The sister missionary pointed out all of the places he hid the plates from the mobs, and told us some other stories. It was so neat!
In front of the frame home.
This is just a picture of the fence that surrounds the Smith farmland. Upstate New York is such a pretty area. Everything is so green!
After our tour of the homes we got to walk through the Sacred Grove. It was so beautiful, peaceful, and calm--everything you expect it to be.

Our last stop was the Peter Whitmer farm in Fayette, NY. This was where the church was officially organized, and where Joseph spent some time translating the plates. This is a picture inside the house.
Lucky for us, the coolest town in Pennsylvania was on the way back to Philadelphia---Scranton! We were excited for this stop too because we are big fans of The Office. We were a bit bummed that the Scranton welcomes you sign had been moved from it's original spot that you see in the show, to a mall. But, we stopped and got a picture of it anyway!