This makes me kinda like Las Vegas...

Snow! Snow! Snow! Everywhere snow. From my friend Drew in Oregon, to my brother and parents in Southern Utah and my sister in Northern Utah to my sisters in Southern California, snow everywhere! I love it.

I cannot think of a time I have seen snow fall from the time I went to work (7:30 am) til well after I got home, about 6 pm.

We live in a concrete jungle and most of the snow was wasted on cement and blacktop, however as I drove home, it was beautiful to see the golf courses covered with snow. This morning I drove up to Red Rock after I dropped Jena at work to get a few pictures, I had no idea how deep the snow would be up there and just how beautiful it would be.

Imagine

My friend Kate sent this to me. I didn't tear up (because I'm dead inside) but I really enjoyed it and it made me think of family.




I like to imagine that this is what Bo and Luke would do if we were to release them into the wild. Although, David's parents dog Charlie greets us like this everytime we see her.
I love each of my family members so much and I'd like to think that this is how we'll greet each other in the Spirit World. I imagine my Dad greeting me like this after being away for so long as I've continued on this Earth. I imagine our embrace and how sweet it will be. I hope he will be proud of me thus far in my life and the decisions I've made. I pray that my Elder Brother, Jesus Christ will also embrace me in the same manner.
I love the joy that is visible in this video. I hope eveyone enjoys this video (despite the cheezy music) and remembers that family is such an important part of the Christmas season. I pray that we will all not allow time to pass in the love we feel for each other.

Actual Factual Halloween

So for Halloween night we got to hang out with two skunks, a donkey, a midnight fairy and a pink cheetah.

We started our night out right by going to Cafe Rio for dinner with Jen's brother Chad, and his family, Sarah, Sariah, and Emma. After a yummy dinner (thanks Chad and Sarah!) we went to the Andersons neighborhood for some trick or treating fun. Sariah dressed up as a Midnight Fairy (is this different from a fairy at other times of the night?) and Emma was a Pink Cheetah.

After Bo and Luke were skunked over the summer at our family cabin we couldn't resist buying the Skunk costumes we saw for them at Target. The costumes were just $7.99 each so we considered it a good deal. They were both adorable in their costumes and it was just further proof we need kids to dress up asap. We had a great time, Sariah even shared some of her candy with us.

This is the donkey, Chad's dog, who's name is in fact Donkey...

I couldn't help but think of the upcoming holidays as we drove by a strip mall with a red sign out front that read "Seasons Greetings". I want the other holidays back!!! We are excited for the upcoming holidays and for the memories that will come as we celebrate. Happy Halloween!

All Hallows Eve

So, tonight was our ward's Halloween party. So, instead of doing the traditional trunk-or-treat we had it inside. We had a chili cook-off (more on that later), carnival games, carmel apples, a cookie decorating station and the class rooms were decorated and candy was given out there.

Jenafer and I won the Best overall on the chili...and the prize??? A wooden spoon. Very exciting, now we can say it is indeed award winning chili. A recipe, I might add that we got from Jen's mom, who created it. So the congratulations should go to her. Go Kath!

David was a Rock Star and Jena was his groupie, and if you ask me, we looked hot. And yes I, David had on make up and black nail polish...Jen was my make-up and hair artist. But, I put on the nail polish all by myself!

This is Warren, about the cutest little kangaroo in the world...if only you could see his tail and the way he hopped.

And our favorite...other than ourselves, of course....

Paint

We have decided to paint the house...this is the new color for the front room...and no we are not going for a University of WY color theme...

I know its hard to see the color, but it is a nice light yellow color called Maple Cream.

Canadians and trucks

Last night a certain Canadian friend of mine (who will remain nameless to protect his anonymity) called and asked if I was available to help him move a refrigerator. I did not have the time and told him, but said that he could borrow my truck if he could figure out a way to get the fridge from the person and then get it up the stairs to his rental condo. He was happy with that outcome and came over. I showed him all the great features my truck has to offer.

1. Dome light doesn't work. Well it does, but it works too well. It stays on and continually stays on, so as a result I took out the fuse. Long story short no dome light.

2. No venting in cold outside air. The A/C works if it is in the non outside air setting. If you want to allow outside air in, it blows hot air. But if you want the nice 70 degree air to come instead of having to have the window open.

3. The driver's side door lock doesn't work, so you have to unlock the passenger door and reach across and unlock the drivers side door, then go around and get in.

4. After you have been in the truck for 20 minutes and driving around you may hear the dings and bells that sound when you start your engine.

5. The spare tire that is in the extended cab that may hit you in the back while you drive as it is no longer under the truck. She-Who-SHall-Not-Be-Named once had a flat tire on the side of the freeway and the AAA guy changed the tire and left the rod that holds up my spare tire on the side of the freeway. So now my options are: leave it in the cab and allow it to roll around or put it in the bed of the truck and let it get stolen (which has happened).

6. The obvious lack of a stereo.

7. The tailgate latch broke on the inside, so I had to take off the panel on the inside of the bed and you have to manually move the metal rods on either side to unlatch either side.

8. If you are thinking my truck is a piece of crap at this point, just wait, there is more.

9. The truck randomly stalls and you have to just pop it into neutral and turn the engine over again. It only happens at stop signs/traffic lights and not while driving.

So after the quick rundown of things to be aware of he left. Later he called me and asked what kind of mood I was in and I told him to get to the point (as many of you possibly are thinking now). As he was backing out of my parking spot he hit the second poll of the carport. Awesome, now I have a number ten for my list. Photos below.

A weekend in California

We went to California last weekend for my friend Ryanne's wedding. It was beautiful. She wore her Great-Grandmothers wedding dress so it was very sentimental and wonderful. I sat in the Sealing Room watching her and Casey be sealed thinking of life and how grateful I am. Grateful for my husband and for our sealing two years ago; grateful for where we are in our lives and what we have learned; grateful for being a Lowe; grateful for my job and the opportunity to be in school again; grateful for my other college girlfriends who live near and far; very grateful to be in the temple; and grateful to be in Orange County.
Ryanne and I had so much fun while we were in college, in the singles ward and at the OCC Institute. I have friends that I know I will have for life, Ryanne being one of them. Ryanne is one of those cool girls that you always want to be but you just don't have the guts. She has lived ALL over the world and visited every continent but South America and Antartica. She is a girl from a tiny town in Montana and moved herself to beautiful Newport Beach, California after she graduated high school. She went to (I know I'm getting some of these details wrong) Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and the Philipines. She decided about a week before the Olympics in Greece that she wanted to go there, so she went. She was supposed to go to the China Olympics also, but she got married instead. She has been on many more adventures and now her new apartment is going to be her next adventure. Her husband teaches school in Orem and he picked out their apartment. Carpet in the Kitchen (and bad carpet at that). Do I need to say more than that?
The other pictures are of my cousin Troy's little girl, her name is Lucy. She is adorable and it was so fun to see her while she was at her grandma's house, my Aunt Lynda. She was so fascinated by my shoes, I had to put her in them! We also got to see Cousin Bryce, and Cousin Troy and Sarah. Saturday night after Ryanne's reception we played our new favorite game, Apples to Apples. I know for most people this is not a new game. It is to us and that's okay. My Mom and Greg had a blast playing it with us. My Mom was in tears from laughing so hard and Greg won. We played again Sunday night and had just as good of a time. It was a wonderful weekend.

Why I hate Las Vegas

So sometime between 6 pm Saturday night and 6 pm tonight my truck was broken into again, for the second time! My stereo was stolen, iPod, and my massage chair. My massage chair was in the extended cab part of the truck. Yes, my massage chair! Who steals a massage chair? And of course it is a mess in there. I didn't realize there were so many papers and business cards in there...they were all over the place! And of course instead of simply unplugging the stereo all the cables were cut pretty far back. Awesome. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate Las Vegas.

We got a new...

We got a new car!!!!!!!!
2005 Saturn Vue
Yay for us!

Our first day...

I know it was a few weeks ago, but I wanted to share pictures of our first day of school...

Our summer...

So, by now you all have realized we are not the best at this whole blogging thing. We have great aspirations to be great bloggers; we take a picture of something and think, "This will make a great blog." Three months later we look at that same picture and think, "Well, that would have been a great blog had we just posted it somewhere near the event." So, this will be my attempt at summing up a great summer.

We went to Disneyland a few times...

This was at the very beginning of the summer, our beautiful niece Alyssa was in her very first ballet performance and she did splendid.

Went hiking...and sometimes on closed trails...the adventures were huge!
We also spent all of July at the cabin helping Dad build the new cabin and sadly my beautiful wife that she is never took a single picture of me doing any work...sad! So, you'll just have to trust that I worked 10 hour days and did some good up there. Maybe we can blog about those photos if they ever get taken again.


We hung out with Greg and Kath...




And even went to the largest 4th of July parade this side of the Mississippi...in Huntington Beach



To be continued...

Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!

So sorry it has been so long since we have posted anything. We blame it on being at our family cabin for much of the summer. We try and beat the heat ANY way we can!!! For those of you who don't know, I (Jen) attend Western Governors University to pursue my degree in Education. I am really enjoying myself so far although it is a lot of work. I have applied for a scholarship (with a lot of Davids help and support!) and would love your help. 40% of the scholarship depends on votes from others. I need all the votes I can get! If you go to www.wgu.edu/contest and click on the video submission link you will find my video, it is the third from the bottom. It isn't the fanciest of videos but it is really heartfelt and a scholarship would mean so much to me. Feel free to let any of your friends and families know about my video, I welcome any and all votes! Thanks again, much love, and we promise to post more soon!

Bo is home...

***********This all happened a week or so ago, but I forgot to post it...and well, as I started to post this, I thought I should do a blog in review for all the things we wanted to start our blog with, Maury (favorite sister who lives in Vegas) told me to forget about it and just move on...so here we go...*************

Tonight is Family Night and for our Family Night David is on the phone with his brother Matthew and I'm doing our first blog. The plan was to do this together but it's almost bedtime for me so...here I go! For those of you who haven't heard, this past week was very scary for us as pet parents. Our basset hound, Botox had been acting very sick. This is sometimes normal for him as he has Irritable Bowel Syndrome, just like his Uncle Matthew as well as Colitis just like...I don't think I can say who it is but let's just say it's in the genes. Well he wouldn't eat and our Basset Hound is CRAZY about food! So that was the first weird thing. Any other time he is ill he just keeps on truckin like nothing is wrong so we knew this time was different. (David here now) After a lot, A LOT of puking we took him to see Aunt Christy and see if we could get him x-rayed and see what was making our boy so sick. Not only was he sick, but he was soooo depressed it was sad to just look at him. He wouldn't even look at us, all he could do was hang his head down. They asked if we were missing any toys, who knew? So after having a series of x-rays, IVs, pain killers and who knows what ( I don't have the itemized list in front of me) he went into surgery. Apparently he swallowed part of a toy. He had chewed the end of a rope toy off and swallowed the knot end. Which was now in his intestines just below his stomach, pretty much blocking everything off. And nearly killing him in the process. I have it in my possession and if anyone wants to see it, I'd be more than happy to show you, although it does smell quite rank. Jena wonders why I am holding onto it...for posterity? Maybe we can turn it into a nick knack someday.

This all happened on Wednesday and we left him there so we could come back to work. Luke was so sad without his buddy. We found out that he is a really good dog without Bo. As we knew Bo was before we got Luke, just together they get stupid. As my dad says, One dog is a dog, Two dogs is a half of a dog and three dogs is no dog at all. I found a stuffed bear outside the other day and brought it in for Luke to chew on. He played with it a little, but while Bo was gone it was his wubby. Everywhere he went the wubby bear went with his...very cute.

I wish we would have taken a before picture of Bo, we took video instead and being new at this, have no idea how to get it from the cam corder to the computer, much less onto blogspot. We do however have pictures of him as he came home just a few hours ago and he is sooo happy to be home. He was smiling ear to ear, which if you know Bo is quite a feat with all that skin on his face.