K & J Sampson

Girl's Camp

2011-09-10T16:20:00.001-06:00

I broke down and went to girl's camp this year. (I HATE camping) I wanted to have the experience with the girls. They were all fabulous! Here are some pictures of one of their favorite activites, I will try to add more pictures later when I get them from some of the other leaders.

Erin

Calli

The .22 range. Look at that wonderful range master. He was a life saver for the trip!

Taylor

Kendra

The shotgun range, we had men from the ward come up to help us with this activity -we are very greatful they were so willing. That's Sam in the front of the picture with her dad.

Kevin's Pride and Joy

2011-09-10T16:11:00.002-06:00

Kevin bought a Mustang Convertible 5.0 GT this summer, he is in heaven!

Las Vegas for our Anniversary

2011-09-10T16:09:00.000-06:00

We were able to go to Vegas for the weekend for our Anniversary in May. We got tickets to the Blue Man Group. They were pretty fun to watch!

Mexican Cruise - February 2011

2011-04-03T09:32:00.000-06:00

We saw beautiful sunsets every night.

Our ship, the MS Oosterdam, in port at Puerto Vallarta.

Puerto Vallarta, first stop.

This is a Walmart and Sam's club right accross from where we docked in Puerto Vallarta.

Second stop, Mazatlan.

Our ride to Stone Island to ride ATV's

This was a random stop on our ATV ride. There's an alligator in that dirty water.

This is where we were after the ATV's, we just relaxed in the Cantina and had some nachos.

Last stop, Cabo SanLucas. We swam with dolphins, but didn't have our own cameras with us, I will post that picture later (hopefully).

Our towel creatures, from our Steward Ratno.

Nelson Family Reunion 2010

2011-04-03T09:08:00.000-06:00

First stop, BURGERVILLE! All of us who don't live in the Northwest miss it...

A quick stop at the Portland Temple

Getting ready to head to the beach. Look at all those beautiful blue eyes!

Our favorite game, Ninja!

Off to the races. There was a 5K to the park, then short races.

All the runners with the prize suckers.

Lauren found a banana slug. Grandma licked it to convince the grandkids it was ok. I don't know how many tongues touched that slug, I couldn't get any pictures because I was sick to my stomach.

Girls night. Manicures, pedicures, facials.

Dax wanted to join in on the fun!

There was a lot of swimming all week. Here's one of the fish - Andrew.

Aaron playing with grandma.

Tom and Becky.

Dax deciding if he really wanted to try the calimari in our "Nelson Amazing Race".

The Gibbons.

After the kids had gone to bed one night we played Crainium with all the adults.

Grandma with all her grand-daughters.

The end of the week... we were all a little tired.

Photo Update

2011-03-27T13:19:00.001-06:00

Christmas 2010

I went to Washington DC with Kevin on one of his business trips, my parents met us there. We went to all the sites, made a stop at DC Cupcakes and a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives restaurant.

Kevin and Grayson went to a Broncos game in 2010

Sherena, in all her glory. She's a good sport! (She did this for Kevin at the draft, she's a Raiders fan)

Tuffy

2010-08-23T14:20:00.001-06:00

Meet our new dog Tuffy!

He's almost 4 years old, he weighs about 5 pounds, and he is getting along great with our other dog, Ramsey!

I haven't abandoned my blog yet...

2010-04-24T17:18:00.000-06:00

I haven't abandoned my blog yet... I've been really busy. I'll try to post this week...
Don't give up on me yet.

Pearl Jam Concert

2009-10-28T06:35:00.000-06:00

Kevin went to the Pearl Jam concert in Salt Lake City. It's his favorite band. He had really good seats. (Kevin took on from here) This was by far the best concert I have ever been to. It was 11 years from the last time Pearl Jam played Salt Lake and I hope they don't wait another 11 years to come back. Pearl Jam opening the show

This was them playing "Unthought Known" from their new album Back Spacer (it rocks)

I tried to get a picture of a crew guy fixing something on Eddie Vedder's back, but it didn't really show.

Another Rocking song, this is my favorite picture from the concert.

This is from Back Spacer and it looks like a old type writer keys, in the middle that is lit up spells out pearl jam.

Broncos Game!

2009-10-27T06:41:00.000-06:00

Kevin is a huge, big, die hard Denver Bronco fan. On October 11th, Kevin and his friend Grayson went to a Bronco game in Denver against the New England. One of Kevin's life long dreams came true this day!

Kevin can't hold back as he prepares for his first ever NFL game.Grayson is ready for some Bronco Football! Bronco ring of honor (hall of fame) Tom Jackson currently on NFL Primetime!

The greatest quarterback to ever play the game.

We weren't sure but we think this is Tom Brady warming up.

Kevin getting ready for the game just in case the Broncos need him!

Grayson taking a breather after a touchdown run!

She said Kevin looked sexy in his Bronco uniform!!

There could not have been a better game to go to! Broncos had their all-time Bronco team at the begining of the game. All the name from above and below in the ring of honor are here.

Creator of the Mile High Salute, needs to be in the Hall of Fame sooner than later.

The game was on CBS and here is our way of getting on TV. Kevin and Grayson with New England fans who can take a joke.

Coin Toss

Final score Denver 20 New England 17, Denver wins in Over Time, happy day!

Opening kick off

Broncos take the field in their oringal mustard yellow and brown uniforms, thank goodness they changed to the Orange and Blue.

(Kevin typed this post, if you can't tell)

Jaemyn's Baptism

2009-10-27T06:29:00.000-06:00

Labor day weekend we were able to drive to Las Vegas for our niece, Jaemyn's baptism! It was a fun weekend, she is such a great girl!

Raelyn, Sydney, Kylie, Jaemyn

We took our dog Ramsey with us. He was reunited with his best friend Meiji. I think the two of them played the whoe weekend together. Ramsey was tired when we got home.

My trip to Oregon

2009-10-26T06:46:00.000-06:00

Kevin had a business trip to Oakland, so I thought I'd spend some time with family in Portland. It was nice, I was able to stay for about 5 days and just play and relax with everyone. I needed a fix because I miss my family so much sometimes and I miss the green of Oregon.

One day we went to the zoo!

This is the new baby elephant at Portland's zoo, she was hanging out with her best friend the pigmy elephant. We thought they were two babies until one of the keppers corrected us...

Dax and Kailey

Daphni and Kailey

Cassidy, Dax, Brady and Zakary looking at the tide pool.

One day Mom, Becky and her kids and I went to the Rose Gardens. It's such a beautiful place with great views.

Mom, Daphni, Brady, Zakary, Becky- look at that background, I sure miss Portland.

Brady, Daphni, Zakary at the Rose Garden

One day we went bowling with all the kids!

Zakary bowling

Brady bowling... he's a hoot!

Kailey bowling

Daphni bowling

Dax bowling- he's a hoot too! He kept me cracking up all week!

It was nice to be able to spend some quality time with some of my nieces and nephews and my brother and his family and my sister and her family and my parents. When I got there Scott and Wendy were there too, so I was able to spend time with them and their kids too! Apparently I forgot to take pictures that day. What I great family we have!

Zakary needed proof he was taller then me...

SFR 2009

2009-10-24T10:14:00.000-06:00

For the Simpson Family Reunion this year we went to Pleasanton, California where my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dan live. We were able to see a lot of things in San Francisco. We went to Alcatraz, spent time on Fishermans Wharf, spent a day in Santa Cruz, had picnics, and had a lot of fun hanging out with family!

Bailey & Ryan

Jenny and Cambria

Zetta and Isaac

Dad and Uncle Dan

Alcatraz Island (a.k.a. "The Rock")

Guard maniquin

Santa Cruz Beach

Santa Cruz boardwalk. My dad found Elivs!

Santa Cruz ride

Cambria enjoying pizza at the park!

Grandma eating watermelon at the park.

Our favorite lunch spot (of course).

The A's game.

Eric and Brian chilling at the game.

Look at those happy faces behind us...

Wendy, Shelby, Emily, Anna...

We had a blast!

24th of July

2009-09-13T16:30:00.001-06:00

For July 24th we had Scott and Amy, and Grayson and Carley over with their kids. We had a BBQ, then Kevin lit off a lot of fireworks, then we put the kids to bed and played games! It was a very fun afternoon!Kevin lighting sparklers for all the kids! Emmerson, Ayden, Carson, and Alivia. (Jer & Kayla were visiting their mom).Amy and Emmerson Grayson, Alivia, and Carley. That's Alivia's "attitude" pose!

Scott and Amy watching fireworks.

Oquirrh Mountain Open House

2009-09-13T16:22:00.000-06:00

Kevin's brother David and his family were visiting in July for a family reunion. They got tickets to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house, so I was able to tag along with them. It's been almost 20 years sunce I've been to a temple open house so it was fun!

Back row: David, Tiffany, Grandma (Kevin's mom), Raelynn

Front row: Syndey, Grandpa (Kevin's dad), Kylie, Jaemyn, Austin

Kevin was working and Kristi and Katie were taking care of the little kids.

4th of July

2009-09-13T16:16:00.000-06:00

We spent the fourth of July in Tooele. We had a BBQ at Kevin's parent's house and then went to the Tooele Rodeo. Austin, our nephew entered into the kids mutton bustin'. We went home early from the rodeo and watched the neighbors set off fireworks. Mark, Lucy and Grandma.

Austin watching them load a sheet in the shoots.

Here is Austin's video, if you look when he falls off he as two handfuls of wool he takes with him...

It takes them a little while to get him out of the shoot, you can see Kristi, Kevin, and Braden up on top watching.

Easy Yummy Sunday Dinner!!

2009-08-09T09:19:00.000-06:00

I know I always like good easy recipes shared with me, so here is one I want to share with you...

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff with Rice

1 1/2 lb boneless beef round steak, trimmed of fat and cut into bite size strip
2 tbsp onion soup mix
1 jar (14.5 oz) sliced mushrooms, drained
1 can (10 1/2 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tbsp chopped fresh chives
1. In 2-3 quart slow cooker, mix beef strips and dry soup mix until evenly coated. Top with mushrooms and soup.
2. Cover; cook on low heat setting 7-8 hours.
3. About 30 minutes before serving, cook rice. Just before serving, stir sour cream (cream cheese) into beef mixture. Serve over rice; sprinkle with chives.
1 serving: Calories 410, Total fat 11g, cholesterol 80 mg, sodium 1220 mg, total carbohydrate 47 g
(This recipe was very tasty! When I added the sour cream I added 4 oz of cream cheese at the same time. Cream cheese makes everything taste better! I also left out the chives. The steak was so tender.) Kevin added Worchestersire sauce to his and liked it a little better!

I made this for dinner last Sunday and it was so easy and good! I found it on the web site www.365daysofcrockpot.blogspot.com , one of my favorite sites to visit!

Southern California Vacation!

2009-06-08T15:51:00.000-06:00

I've been working on this post for a couple of weeks... but here it finally is!

We went to Southern California this summer for our 10 year anniversary! We had a ton of fun! Spent some time with some family and some friends, and alone...

The first stop we had to make was to one of our favorite restaurants- In-n-Out! We ate there probably 5 times over the course of 12 days...

We stayed with Kristi and Carl for a couple days. Kristi got us into Legoland for free! (Thanks Kristi!)

Kevin fighting Darth Vader, with the help of R2D2.

A full size car made out of legosMiniature land... our favorite part.

Las Vegas

Washington DC

This one's for Kevin's mom and my dad... ELVIS!

Batman! These were amazing how they made these...One night we had dinner at Ray and Tammie's house. (Kevin's cousin)

This is Ryan, Ray, Nicholas, and TammieKevin's uncle JerryWalter, Melissa, Heather, and Karen (Kevin's cousin)We stayed up a little too late...

Kevin, Carl, and Austin went to a Padre's game one night.

Day 1 at Disneyland.

We didn't take many pictures, we were too busy running from one ride to the next, having soo much fun!

Kevin with one of the haunted mansion maids.
For lunch we met up with our friends, Scott & Amy and kids, and Grayson & Carley and kids, at the Rainforest Cafe in downtown Disney. We all planned to be down there the same week so we could play! Grayson and Carley were kind enough to let us share their timeshare in Oceanbeach for the week! We had a blast!

Universal Studios!

(Kevin's favorite spot on our vacation)
I think this is from Jurrasic Park- I'll have to verify with Kevin.

This car is from the mummy.

Magnum P.I.'s car

One of 8 Delorians used for Back to the Future.

Kevin with Beetleguise.

We saw a lot of characters... Woody Woodpecker, and his girlfriend (I don't remember her name)The house from Psycho- I will NEVER see that movie...This was a set from War of the Worlds. It is an actual 757 torn apart in a neighborhood setting, it was pretty cool. I guess they spent 9 million dollars on this set and it's only in the movie for a couple of minutes...Kevin thought this was funny...

After Universal Studios closed we went to Bubba Gumps for dinner. Yum!

Universal has a "City Walk" like downtown Disney...

SeaWorld! (My favorite park of the trip!)
We were waiting for the park to open and were able to stand right next to one of the "Shamu's" tanks, it was funny, Kevin was trying to point something out to me so wasn't paying attention to where the whale was and just after I took this picture he turned a looked in the tank and saw the whale right in front of his face- he jumped, I got a good laugh!

The Sealions were pretty fun to feed. I was laughing so hard I couldn't feed them fast enough.

I LOVED the Shamu show! It is amazing what these whales can do and that they are so trained. When I was growing up I wanted to be a vet tech, obviously that changed as I got older and went to college, but being at Sea World reminded me why I had wanted to do that...

We got pretty up-close and personal with the penguins, they were outside in the hot California sun. They had 2 trainers in with them when we went by and I was amazed at how they interacted with the trainers.

The dolphin show was also amazing! I loved it! I had a hard time wanting to take pictures but also not wanting to miss any of it.

We met Kristi & Carl (and kids) and Ray & Tammie (and kids) at Dave & Busters one night for dinner. It was a lot of fun- it's like a Chuck E. Cheese for grown-ups!

This is Braden (Kristi & Carl's youngest) being so darn cute!

Here is Carl & Kristi and Braden and Austin.

Kevin & Ray

Day 2 at Disneyland. Again, not very many pictures...

For lunch we went to the ESPN zone in downtown Disney. Kevin talked the manager into letting him in the studio to look around and take some pictures... Kevin looks right at home.

We stayed pretty late at Disneyland and apparently Austin was having a rough time waiting in line at Space Mountain. His uncle Kevin found some girls to keep him company...

They had him ride the ride with them and of course wanted their picture with him! When Kristi and I met back up with them Austin told Kristi he didn't want to go on anymore rides with his uncle Kevin.... it was pretty funny.

One afternoon we had a BBQ with Carley and Grayson out on the balcony.

Kevin thought he made the "perfect" steak. He asked me to take a picture of it with the grill marks...

San Diego's Wild Animal Park

We only lasted a couple hours at the wild animal park because we were so tired of all the walking we were doing...

Meerkats

Silverback Gorillas Us feeding the Lorikeets

Day 3 at Disneyland.

We met up with our friends again and went on some rides together.

Scott, Kevin, and Grayson

Chris (Scott's mom), me and Ayden at Small World

We had such a fun trip! And are already planning the next one for next year!

Pie Palooza

2009-04-25T07:05:00.000-06:00

Last night our ward had a "Pie Palooza" party. Kevin entered a pie in the judging contest, and participated in the pie eating contest.This is his Apple Peach pie. He was beat out by Narda's spiced apple pie...Kevin and Hunter getting ready to start.
Kevin said he was being a gentlemen and let a Nicole win.

What We've Been Up To Lately

2009-04-21T04:55:00.000-06:00

Ramsey!

This is our puppy, isn't he so cute!? I have a hard time punishing him...

Kevin's "Eagle Eye"

Kevin received an "Eagle Eye" award from TSA for finding a "hard to find object" in someone's bag. I think he found a butterfly knife and had to confiscate it.Jeff and Kevin

Kevin's cousin Jeff was in Utah for a couple of days and we were able to meet up with him and go out to dinner.
Kevin and a buddy from Columbia College!

Kevin graduated from Columbia College and this is one of his friends that was having a graduation party of his own. Kevin now thinks he wants a graduation party but wants to wait until we have his diploma in hand (to make sure it's real!).Roller Derby!

We went to the Salt Lake roller derby recently with Scott and Amy, and Grayson and Carley. I think we were the yuppiest people there... But it was fun! Before the derby we all went out to dinner... not sure what Scott's doing...

Murder Mystery Dinner Party

Andrew and Staci had a murder mystery dinner party for Saint Patricks day! My mom was in town so she came with us! We had a lot of fun... maybe some day we'll host one!

2009-02-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

We decided to head to Salt Lake City for the day. Our first stop was TJ Maxx. Unfortunately I never seem to be able to find anything there I like, but Kevin found a couple shirts for a really good price. He also found some good Father's Day gifts for our dads! (Yea! That's done!) Next we headed over to my favorite store, Lane Bryant. I really needed a dress (and Kevin was tired of hearing me complain about that on Sunday mornings), so I tried on a bunch of dresses. There was one I really liked and one Kevin really liked. I was debating and my wonderful husband said, "Would you be happy if I bought you both?" Of course I said YES! So, I came home with two new dresses! These are what they look like;

Yeah for me!

After dress shopping, we went to Barnes and Noble for awhile. I always seem to enjoy looking at all the books, this particular day I spent the majority of my time in the cookbook section! I have decided that since we are going on 2 vacations this year we need to save money... So less eating out, and more eating in. I have started using the crockpot more and more! (If anyone has any tried and simple (and good) recipes for the crockpot please let me know! One of my friends showed me this website; http://365daysofcrockpot.blogspot.com/ but I haven't tried any of these recipes yet...

Then we headed to lunch! We met Jared (my cousin) and Emily and their cute kids at Famous Dave's (YUMMY!). Emily helped Kevin out with his last math test, and he got 105 out 100, so we told Emily we would treat her to lunch! This is what Jared, Emily, Kevin, and I shared;

We could have stopped right there, and that would have been a great day! But it got better! We went home and I was able to take a nice nap! I love taking naps when possible. After my nap we had a little dinner, and went grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. It seems we can't go into Wal-Mart on a Saturday night without seeing a few people we know, we ended up talking to our friends Evan and Nicole for awhile in the dairy section. (They just got a dog and so did we, so we were comparing notes). After we came home and put groceries away we went and saw the movie "Taken". It's actually a really good movie. I don't like scary movies and that was my concern about seeing this one but it was more suspenseful then scary. Kevin really liked the movie! Saturday's like this make me wish we had more of them! I love spending the day with my husband and having fun! We neglected our house chores, so we'll have to make those up this week, but I think it was well worth it!

My new obsession...

2009-02-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hi, My name is Jennifer, and I'm addicted to facebook...
I have found many current and long lost friends. It's so fun to reconnect with the ones I haven't heard from in ages, and great to know what is going on in the lives of all my friends. I'm on facebook a minimum of once a day, but more like 3 times a day. It also comes to my cell phone, so I always know what's going on. At first I wasn't so sure about it, but it's offical- I am addicted!

Meet Ramsey

2009-01-18T19:04:00.000-07:00

So, through a series of events, we decided we were "ready" for a dog. Here is the dog that has entered our lives, and is starting to enter our hearts;

This is what Ramsey looked like when we picked him up...He was pretty scraggly, and I kept telling Kevin we needed to take him to the groomer- Kevin couldn't wait and thought it would be easy... This is what he looks like now;After Kevin's initial attempt he realized he should leave it up to the "professionals". So he found a groomer and they shaved him to save the cut...Ramsey is a good dog and his personality comes out more everyday, the more comfortable he gets. He is about 7 months old, and he is a Bichon Frise and Lhasa Apso mix. They tell us he is full grown already and he weighs about 8 pounds. We still need to get him into the vet for a check up and other unpleasantries, I'm sure he'll forgive us...You're welcome to come by and see him! He's still getting used to strangers, but seems to be better with each person that comes over. He did pretty good when I had all the Mia Maids over for an activity, he figured out which ones would carry him and pet him all night long.

(By-the-way, we are going to let his hair grow out again so he is a little fluffier, especially around his face. He's a cutie!)

Scott's Birthday

2009-01-18T18:44:00.001-07:00

Our good friend Scott has a Birthday in December also, we were able to celebrate with them this year again!We met Scott, Amy, Ayden, Emme, Suzie (Amy's mom), and Grayson at the Sky Box at the Gateway down town.

We ate dinner, watched Scott open gifts, and of course Kevin played rowdy with Ayden and Emme.

I think this is Emme's favorite thing to do to me, because she gets a reaction...

Ayden

Kevin and his buddy Ayden.

Here are some short clips of Kevin getting the kids to laugh, we sure love their laughs!

We enjoying doing things with the Taylors! Later that night Amy got Scott some tickets to the Jazz game for his birthday, unfortunately we weren't able to go because Kevin had to get up early (2:30am) for work the next day, but Scott, Amy, and Grayson went... maybe next time.

My Birthday

2009-01-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

For my birthday this year I didn't do too much. I didn't wake up real early for the sales, just around 6:00am and got ready. Kevin got me some more clothes and a lot of gift certificates to Lane Bryant for my birthday! I went shopping for a little while, no really good sales to be excited about. Kevin was able to get the day off from work and so was I, so we headed into Salt Lake to do some more shopping and to go to out to lunch and a movie. I didn't last too long, because I didn't feel well still. We got home and Kevin's parent's came over and brought my favorite pizza- Papa Murphy's DeLite Chicken Pizza. We had pizza and played some games, we didn't get to the cake because I didn't really feel like it...

Kevin's mom and dad got me some homemade lotion from a lady they met. It smells like cucumber, yum!They also got me this glass trivet for my Kitchen- so cute!

The next day, Saturday, we decided to celebrate again! We went over to Kevin's parent's house for taco and ice cream cake- my favorite for my birthday!Kevin got the cake from Cold Stone this year- it was raspberry cheesecake with white cake!

Christmas Day

2009-01-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

Christmas morning was pretty non-eventful. Kevin woke up at 2:30am to get to work, I tried to sleep in. I got out of bed around 6:00am and decided to catch up on all my shows that I had DVR'd. Between shows, or when I got bored, I called various family members to wish them a Merry Christmas. I had a touch of the flu and a cold (that later turned into a sinus infection), so I layed around the house in my pajamas until around 11:00am. Kevin came home just afternoon and we decided to open presents; I got Kevin 2 new cameras (the old camera was used on the previous post- it started dying on us) And Kevin got me a new camera. Hopefully that means we'll have more pictures in the new year!This is me, letting Kevin try out one of his new cameras. I try to get Kevin and new set of white socks every year for Christmas, hopefully this will encourage him to throw out the bad ones as soon as they get holes!Kevin bought me clothes this year! It was fun for me, we went to the store, I tried on some clothes then gave them to the clerk to give to Kevin. He then got to choose which clothes to buy, so it would be somewhat of a surprise. My wonderful husband really surprised me and bought everything I had the clerk show him!I finally broke down and got Kevin an Xbox this year, he was pretty surprised. We now have a Ninetendo 64, Play Station 2, Wii, and Xbox. I think we will be entertianed for a while...

After opening our gifts we headed over to Kevin's parents house for a turkey dinner. Their power had gone out just as the Turkey was getting done, but it all turned out fine. We had a storm come through on Christmas that dumped about 6 inches of snow, but was really windy. We ate dinner, played games, then went home a little early to go to bed, I still was not feeling very good. But it was a good low key Christmas this year!

Christmas Eve

2009-01-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

For Christmas Eve this year, the festivities were held at our home. Kevin and I both had to work that day, but it wasn't too bad, Kevin was done at 12:30pm and I was done at 3:30pm. We had his Mom, Dad, and Grandma come over for my "famous" lasagne dinner and to exchange gifts.
Kevin got his grandma a new nightgown for Christmas eve.I got his mom a new robe for Christmas eve.Kevin's dad got him a new game, that we played the next day.Kevin's mom got me a new popcorn popper for Christmas eve. We had a lot of fun eating, hanging out, and opening gifts. We had to call it an early night because Kevin had to work the next morning at 4:00 am.

Youth Temple Trip

2009-01-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

This December, just before Christmas, I was able to go with the youth of our ward to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. What a great experience! It is the first time I have gone as an adult leader, it is so fun to be involved in the lives of our youth, they are all great, strong kids.
Rather than driving home from work and turning around and driving back to Salt Lake, I just went straight down town and had a little while to walk around and look at the temple lights and the grounds. They are so beautiful at night with all the lights;

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T07:04:00.000-07:00

We were fortunate this year to be with Scott and Amy and their family for Thanksgiving. Suzie (Amy's mom) had Thanksgiving at her house. Kevin had to work in the morning, so I got up and took him to work at 3AM. Of course I couldn't go back to sleep so I went shopping. It's the best time to go to Walmart... I came home and did a deep cleaning of my kitchen and the promptly went to work undoing all the cleaning. I decided to make my first Apple pie- I don't really like apple pie so I had never attempted it. I got the apples cut and the crust made, put in the oven, and was working on the crumble top (dutch apple pie). I reached in the oven and took out the pie to add the topping. As I was working on the topping my house started to fill with smoke- I opened the oven and discovered I had somehow dropped an oven mitt in the oven when I was pulling out the pie. We have a gas oven so it was even worse. I panicked a little then decided to through the oven mitt out the back door as my fire alarms were going off. I ran and opened all the windows (I guess I wanted my neighbors to hear that I was starting a fire), then went back out the back door to check on the fiery oven mitt. The deck was singed so I had to move the oven mitt again to the concrete. What an exciting morning! After all was said and done- I only lost and oven mitt and the pie turned out great.
I picked up Kevin from work around noon and we headed to Suzie's house. We made a pit stop at Marie Calendar's for a second pie (I couldn't risk my house again). We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with lots of yummy food! After we were all cleaned up we went and saw "Bolt" with everyone. It's a cute movie, I'm glad we went with the kids.
I took my camera with me intending to take pictures but we had to much fun eating and talking...

Kevin's Trip to Virgina

2008-11-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

November 2nd Kevin left for a two week trip to Virgina for some TSA training- it's "SSI" (sensitive security information). If was rough having him gone that long... Here are some pictures from his weekend off. They rented cars and went to Washington DC.

Where he stayed;

Arlington Cemetery;
Tomb of the unknown soldier;

Capital Building;

Washington Monument;
Building Kevin's paycheck comes from;
Lincoln Memorial;
Korean War Memorial;

A new Jennifer!

2008-11-28T06:40:00.000-07:00

October was an eventful month for me... I was called as the first councilor in the young womens, called as the committee chair for our ward Christmas party, and in charge of a physical inventory in our warehouse at work (thus the 60-80 weeks). I had been thinking I was working way too much anyway, but when I got the callings I decided that work wasn't as important as I was making it. So now I'm working 40-50 hours a week, and spending all my extra time with the young women and planning the ward Christmas dinner. After all this happened I felt like a different person... We went to Lagoon with Scott and Amy and Jarom and Kayla- not something I would typically do. And I know most of my family won't believe this, but I went on 3 rollercoasters- what was I thinking! We had a lot of fun spending time with the Taylors! After the third rollercoaster, "Wicked", I decided I was done! I remembered very quickly why I don't like rollercoasters. We also raced go-carts and did bumper cars. It was a really fun day spent with Kevin and our friends. Here are some pictures we got;

These last pictures are from the second ride on "Wicked"- which there was no way they were getting me on again!

More Visitors!

2008-11-24T05:05:00.000-07:00

The day after Kevin's cousins left (see previous post) my mom came to town to spend time with my grandma. I picked her up at the airport and took her out to my grandma's house in Layton. On Thursday night my dad flew in, so we picked him up and tried to meet up with my mom and grandma down town- boy was that an adventure. Friday night my parents came to stay at our house, we went out to dinner then played games. On Saturday it was BYU's homecoming game (the reason my dad came out too) so the four of us went to the came and froze!

Visitors

2008-11-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of October we had some fun visitors at our house! Kevin's aunt Sally had just been married and was coming to Utah to have a reception/open house. So some of Kevin's cousins came and stayed with us for the weekend.

Ray and Tami came from San Diego! This was the first time I met them, and now I understand why Kevin brags on them all the time! Ray brought some lobster he had caught and made a really good dip- which is great coming from me because I don't particularly care for seafood. We sure enjoyed their company and talking to them!
Dale and Sheila drove up from Texas. (Yes, they are a little crazy for that! I would never do it!) They were able to spend a little more then the weekend with us. We had fun hanging out with them and sitting around talking!

We love having visitors at our house! So anyone is welcome any time!

Picture Tag

2008-10-27T19:29:00.000-06:00

Cassidy tagged me for this... sorry it has taken so long;This is the fourth picture in my fourth folder. I wasn't sure what it was until I uploaded it.
Funny enough though, the picture is of Kailey's 2 year birthday party! Kailey is now 5 and in Kindergarten, she is growing up so fast and is such a beautiful little girl. You can look at Tyler and Cassidy's blog to see a current picture of Kailey the cutie!

I tag Amy, Carley, Staci, and Lindsay. Go to your picture folders and upload your fourth picture from your fourth folder, then post the picture with an explanation and tag four other people. Have fun!!

Grandma's Birthday Celebration!

2008-09-22T12:09:00.000-06:00

Grandma is turning 92 years young this week so we had a brithday celebration at her new house!Brent and Janice and David and Amber were here from Idaho Falls. (Somehow I didn't get Amber in any of the pictures...)We had a light dinner, thanks Shelly and Joan, and then cake- here is the spread with the guys devouring (Aaron, David, and Craig(I think)).Here is Alexis (Aaron & Julie's), Owen (Jared & Emily's), and Preston (Jim & Shelly's).Out on grandma's lawn- Parker (Jim & Shelly's), Kyler (Aaron & Julie's), and Ryan (Jared & Emily's). Shelly and Preston.

Owen- he was quite the ham! (Jared & Emily's youngest)

Grandma opening presents.
Janice with 2 of her grandsons - Kyler and Owen

DJ, Joan, Shelly, Jim and Preston.
Janice, Brent, and the birthday girl!

Craig, Jared, Shelly, Brent, and Kaden.Brent with his granddaughter Ashlyn (Aaron & Julie's new baby girl).

Grandma with Kaden (Aaron & Julie's new baby boy)

ALASKAN CRUISE!

2008-09-11T18:40:00.000-06:00

The day after Kevin's graduation I hopped on a plane with my parents and grandma to Seattle. When we got to Seattle we spent a little bit of time at my brother's house and then we went down to the port and boarded for a cruise! This was a "brother/sister" reunion for my mom, my grandma wanted a traveling companion, so I was able to go!This is checking in our baggage before loading the ship. In front is me, grandma, and Kathy, and in the background is DJ and Joan.

After we boarded the ship we waited in the "Lido" for our rooms to be ready. They had quite the buffet set out to feast on, little did I know that was just the beginning.

DAY 1

The first day on the boat, before we left port, we did a "mandatory life boat drill". It was kind of funny to me. We had to grab our life jackets out of our state rooms and make our way down to where the lift boats are. Watching everyone try to put the life jackets on was the funny part. They had all these straps and hooks and it was almost impossible to figure it out, then one of the stewards would come along and get the person all hooked up in seconds. After the life boat drill we just walked around the ship trying to figure out where everything was and where all our rooms were in comparison to the others. We had our dinner table for 10 reserved everynight at 5:30pm. Same waiters and drink staff every night. After dinner there was an open house for the "digital workshop", it was interesting, but a little below the level I am at... Little did I know that is where I would be able to find my mom and aunt Kathy every time there was a class (I think this was the highlight of the cruise for them). Later that night we went to the night club and played a trivia game. We (my dad and me) were at almost every trivia game there was and placed in almost every single one we played. We met a couple who was on their honeymoon and teamed up with them at all the games too- we were quite the team! Every night the crew put on some form of entertainment in the "Vista Lounge". Some were good, some were OK.
This is our dinner table- starting at the front and going clockwise; DJ, Joan, Janice, Brent (standing), Dan, Kathy, Grandma, Me, my dad(standing), and my mom.
This is when we were waiting to start the trivia game. My mom, grandma, me, and Kathy. Everyone but my dad and me only played the first night.

DAY 2

Day to was an "at Sea" day. We lounged around, ate, went to some entertainment on board, ate, played a trivia game, ate, did some line dancing lessons, and ate some more. Everyone tells you there is a lot of food on board, I just didn't realize how much, an pretty much anything you might want.

DAY 3
Scenic Cruising Glacier Bay

We were "at sea" but we were up in Denali National Park. A couple of park rangers boarded the ship (without us stopping) and had some informational talks about Alaska and the park. We pulled up next to some glaciers and sat there for about an hour. It was amazing to me that the caption could take this ship that was 935 feet long and 106 feet wide and turn it from side to side in front of the glaciers (basically spinning the ship). My parent's had a balcony and so when their side of the ship was facing the glacier we went out and took pictures and sat out on their deck. Later that night was our first "formal" dress dinner. That was fun to get dressed up and take pictures. And of course later was the entertainment, a comedian, Julie Barr. She was pretty funny. And then we played another trivia game.

This is the "panoramic" picture I took of the glacier out my parent's balcony, my mom "stitched" it together for me. (this is one of the things she learned how to do in the digital classes.)

This is my grandma and my mom and dad with the glacier in the background.

This our group photo from the first formal night.

DAY 4

Juneau, Alaska

We docked in Juneau while most of us were still sleeping... so grandma and I ordered room service so we wouldn't be rushed. Kathy, Dan, Brent, Janice, and grandma had all booked an excursion to go on a float plane. DJ, Joan, my mom, dad, and I hadn't booked anything so we thought we'd just walk around and see what was available. When we got off the ship it was pretty rainy and foggy. We headed over to where the float planes take off and talked to the office that books the flights. They were willing to give us a discount from what they give the ships so my dad talked me in to going. I'm pretty much a chicken when it comes to stuff like this, so it took some convincing. We had a while until our plane took off so we went over to a native american museum, interesting, but boring after an hour... We then headed to "The Hanger" and had some lunch, then on to the plane. It probably wasn't the best idea for me to eat right before we were supposed to take off, I had nerves though so I didn't eat much anyway. We then loaded the plane and took off. It was amazingly gentle take off, in fact I was so sure when we left the water and hit the air. There were some bumpy spots that made me a bit nervous, but it was a beautiful sight. My dad was able to sit in the co-pilot seat and see the view from there. We flew over a couple glaciers and looked for wildlife along the river (we never saw any). When we landed I started getting really nervous, so nervous that I wasn't even sure when we landed. The landing was so gentle and smooth that I didn't know we had touched down on the water. After the flight we loaded the ship and met up for dinner with everyone. We found out that Dan, Kathy, Brent, Janice, and grandma never were actually able to go on the float plane. It was too foggy and rainy when they were scheduled to take off, they rescheduled and it was still to bad of weather. They were a little sad that they had planned it and weren't able to go and we had just jumped on... Later that night we went to the entertaiment, Hayden Smith, a singer- he was pretty good. Then of course we had to do our trivia for the night...

Mom and dad infront of a clan house at the museum.

Lunch at the Hanger. This is one of the only times I was able to talk to Kevin, so I was on the phone...

The float plane group- the plane in the background.

DAY 5

Sitka, Alaska

We anchored in Sitka out a little way and had to take a tender to shore. They really just used the life boats, kind of interesting. In Sitka we jumped on a bus and took a tour around Sitka, it's pretty small. We went to a forest and in the middle was a stream you could see all the salmon making their way up the river to spawn. We shopped around Sitka for a little while then boarded the ship. The night's entertaiment was Leo Ward, master illusionist, it was a pretty good show. Then we couldn't miss our trivia game! After the trivia game they had a $500 cash bingo game. My dad bought cards for each of us... I ended up winning! There was also another passenger who got bingo at the same time, so I won $250. That night they also had a love and marriage game, that was pretty entertaining and funny. And then later that night they had a "Chocolate Extravaganza"- sounded so good... but a little dissapointing after all the great food and desserts we had already had on board.

This is the harbor in Sitka. (Another panoramic, stitched together by my mom)

This is in the forest with our tour guide, she was a pretty nice girl.This is in front of a clan house with our whole group.

DAY 6

Ketchikan, Alaska

In Ketchikan we jumped on a "trolley" of sorts... that was interesting. Our tour guide was quite interesting too. His name is Rob- this is his web site, if you want to see just how interesting he was... http://www.myspace.com/ruralalaskan Rob took us to some really neat places, we went to a stream bed, where the salmon were spawning and right accross the street was a large group of trees with about 10 bald eagles in them. That was an amazing sight to see. Then he took us to totem park, where there are quite a few totem poles preserved. He told us about totem poles and some of their stories, when we got to the bottom of the park he showed us where there was a large bald eagle nest with two baby eaglets in it, we couldn't seem to get a picture of the eaglets, although they did stick their heads up every once in a while. After our tour my dad and I split from the group to do some shopping, they went to see a museum. This was a short day in Ketchikan so we boarded the ship early and had lunch. After lunch there was a Black Jack tournament. My dad and uncle Dan entered the tournament... they were the last two standing at the end of the tournament. My dad beat Dan out on the last hand, for a $500 prize. That night for dinner was another formal dinner, I don't seem to have any pictures from that night. Then on to our trivia game again- by then the crew knew who we were and expected us to keep winning, we didn't let them down.

This is just one of the totem poles that we saw. The story that goes with it is a little like the boy who cried wolf. I though this was cute...
This is one of the trees with all the bald eagles in it. There were a group of 3-4 trees that each had 2-5 eagles in them.

This is the eagle nest, you can hardly see the eagle sitting on the perch and then the nest is the big "knotty" looking thing in the center of the tree.While my dad and I were shopping we saw this dog hanging out the window. There were actually two of them but the batteries in my camera was dying and we couldn't get the other one to come back to the window...

DAY 7

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
The majority of the day was spent at sea but we ported in Victoria about 7:00pm. We boarded a bus to ride into the city and then once we got in the city we found a double decker bus to take a tour on. Again, my dad and I split from the group to do some shopping (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree) while everyone else walked around the pier and The Empress Hotel. Victoria is a pretty city, especially at night when the buildings are all lit up.

The double decker bus tour- of course we were on the top...The parliment building at night.
The Empress Hotel- the green lights on the top changed colors.On the Pier by a whale mosaic statue we found.

Some beautiful flowers with the Parliment behind. There were so many flowers all over Victoria.

The next morning we were back in Seattle. I was ready to call Kevin and tell him to meet for the next cruise out. I loved it! I am trying to plan a cruise in May- anyone want to join us?

Kevin Has Graduated!

2008-09-04T06:37:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, August 9th, Kevin walked in his college graduation! My parents were able to fly in for a couple of days before, my grandma was there. Kevin's brother and his family came up, and Kevin's sister Kristi was still here from her summer vacation. Kevin's parents, grandma and his sister Katie live in Utah, so there were there too.

Kevin receiving his diploma- not really, it's all staged. He actually has 2 more classes to finish up. He will get his diploma the beginning of October. But it was close enough they let him walk in graduation.

My parents took us out to The Spaghetti Factory for lunch before everyone else got to town. Of course my dad had to tell them it was Kevin's birthday. Kevin was a good sport and played along.

Kevin, David, his Dad, and my Dad went golfing the day before graduation. I heard the Dad's beat Kevin and David... At least that's what my Dad told me...

Me, THE GRADUATE, My Dad, Mom, and Grandma

Sydney, THE GRADUATE, Me, Austin, Jeamyn, David, Kylie, Realyn, Tiffany

Kevin's grandma, Braden, Kristi, Me, THE GRADUATE, Austin, Kevin's Mom and Dad

We went to The Mayan after graduation for some dinner and entertainment. I think the entertainment was enjoyed a little more then the food. This is a picture of Kevin's family that was able to make it.

July...

2008-08-06T04:51:00.000-06:00

We started out July headed for Oregon for a Nelson family reunion. We flew in on July 4th and joined all my brothers and sisters and their families. We headed straight from the airport to the park for family pictures. Here is grandma and grandpa with all the grandkids.After pictures we ran some errands and then went and saw Wall-E, I thought it was a pretty cute movie. That night we went to the Beavers baseball game. The beavers were losing until Zakary, our oldest nephew, put on his rally cap. After that, it was all over for the other team! After the game there were some pretty good fireworks and free ice cream in front of the park. I don't think they could ever do that here in Utah... can you imagine.

The next day we all headed down to the beach for the week. I sure miss being able to do that. We had a lot of fun! I enjoy being with my family. Here are a couple of pictures from the week.

The tidepools in the morning- it was VERY cold.

This is the "traditional" Family Home Evening picture. Kevin's "keeper" crab. We crabbed off the dock in Newport and Kevin caught the only dungeness keeper. Marshmellow shooters, this was pretty funny...
One of my favorite places in Oregon- Tillamook Cheese Factory. You always have to get ice cream!
At the baseball game.

This is Kevin "calming" the little boys down for bed...

We had such a fun time with everyone! We sure do miss Oregon too.

We came home from the family reunion on Saturday, July 12th in the afternoon. It was a whirlwind after that... We had to unpack, wash clothes, and repack. On Sunday, July 13th Kevin headed to Texas for some training for work for a special team he is on. On Monday, July 14th- at 4:30AM I headed out of girls camp. I can't believe it myself, I went to girls camp... The stake asked me to be a cook this year. I actually had a lot of fun. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. Our stake was able to go up to Heber Valley Camp this year. It is a church owned girls camp with cabins, pavilions, showers, and a full kitchen. If any of you have a chance to go, it is great. There are couple missionaries that are the camp hosts, and wonderful people. The nature is beautiful up there and the spirit is wonderful. The missionaries call it "the temple on the hill". They were explaining to us that the President of the church felt so strongly about putting this camp in for the girls and it cost the equivilant of 3 large temples. Here is the web site http://www.hebervalleycamp.org/ I got home exhausted on Friday afternoon and slept for awhile. Kevin came home Friday around midnight.

My Own Chef Ramsey

2008-06-22T14:24:00.001-06:00

For Kevin's birthday I got him 2 Chef Ramsey cook books. He has wanted them ever since we have been watching Hell's Kitchen. Thursday Kevin decided to try a few recipes. His mom and dad and sister Katie (with baby Lucy) came over. Kevin made risotto with tiger shrimp for appetizer, bacon wrapped filet mignon with mushrooms for the main course, with garlic and onion broccoli, then homemade cheesecake for desert. I had to take a picture of the filet mignon, it was sooo good, and cooked just the way I like it. I think Kevin had a lot of fun, hopefully this will become a habit!

Father's Day

2008-06-22T14:19:00.001-06:00

For father's day, after church, we went to Kevin's parent's house for a BBQ. (Kevin' didn't get to use his new BBQ) We had shrimp and chicken on shish-kabobs and vegetables on the grill. MMMM, it was yummy!

The last picture didn't turn out as well, it is everyone at the table- Kevin, his dad Leroy, his grandma Edna, and his mom Ellen. (I was taking the picture)

Kevin's Birthday Weekend Extravaganza!!

2008-06-22T13:39:00.000-06:00

Kevin's birthday was on June 14th. He had just a few celebrations...
On Thursday June 12th when I came home from work I surprised him by taking him out to Wendover, NV. (Actually the little stinker figured it out before I could surprise him) We stayed at Montego Bay.

We got a nice suite with a jacuzzi in it! It also had a steam shower in it... I really liked that.

We ate at the buffet on Thursday night and played a little in the casino. Then on friday morning we had a nice leisurely breakfast. Kevin headed to the casino for a little while longer and I headed to the salon/spa. I got a nice french manicure, and Kevin got a happy wife. We left to come home a while after that...

Friday night we met our friends, Amy & Scott and Grayson & Carley, down town at Iggy's to celebrate Kevin's birthday. We sure love hanging out with these guys... they are our kind of people, if you know what I mean!

After Iggy's we were going to see "Don't Mess with the Zohan" (NOT recommended) but had a little time to waste before the movie started. The Gateway was having a sidewalk chalk festival. There were some amazing pieces. My favorite is the one on the left. We didn't make it back to see the finished pieces, but you can imagine...

On Saturday morning, as soon as Kevin came home from basketball he was ready to open his presents. He opened a BBQ cleaner brush, BBQ skewers, and BBQ vegetable basket... We then went to Home Depot and picked up his new stainless steel BBQ!

After picking up the BBQ we headed to Kevin's parent's house for another celebration. We had BLT's and lots of fruit, I think you can see some of it in this picture.

Saturday night Kevin and I went to the movies together. We went and saw "The Hulk" (in the ghetto-not a theater we will go to again). This movie we would actually recommend, just don't expect too much.

So we celebrated Kevin's 35th birthday for 3 days straight.

Welcome the newest member to our extended family

2008-06-16T06:06:00.001-06:00

My younger sister had a baby on June 5th! Congratulations!
Meet Aaron Robert Curlee...

This is Aaron with his sister Emily, and brothers Austin and Owen (mom too).

Try This...

2008-06-09T20:45:00.000-06:00

You Are Snow White!

Pure and trusting. You are a gentle soul who can get along with just about anyone. Everyone you meet instantly falls in love with you. How can they resist? You have a pure, lovable nature that's irresistable. Just don't trust everyone who comes across your path.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

One of Our Favorite Web Sites

2008-06-06T05:48:00.000-06:00

I know I have told a couple of you about this website and have been promising to put it on our blog... For those of you who like to play Catan but don't have anyone to play it with or don't want the clean-up when you're done...
http://games.asobrain.com/
Kevin and I play it together sometimes at night. His user name is "mackey" and my user name is "knjsampson". When we play we are usually in the Non-Ranking 1 room. We hope to see you there sometime.

Memorial Day Weekend

2008-06-05T05:54:00.000-06:00

Memorial Day weekend was eventful, to say the least. Saturday we got up early, Kevin went golfing with the elders quorum and I weeded the front yard. When Kevin returned home I had the brilliant idea of getting mulch for our flower beds. We jumped in the truck and headed down to the local nursery. There were so many flowers to chose from, I got quite and few. Kevin found some mulch/barkdust for the flower beds. We got home and I started planting flowers and Kevin was weeding. Then, just like I do best, I changed my mind about the barkdust. I decided it would look better if it were all around the house too. SO, we jumped back in the truck and headed back to the nursery for round two. By then we decided it was time for a lunch break. We met up with Kevin's parents and had a quick lunch, we told them we would like to have them over that night for games and dinner and to see our front yard. After lunch we headed back to the house to spread the barkdust. We got it looking so good, who would have thought that I would even care about yard work, I think I had to be bribed or threatened as a child to do yard work.

After the yard work and clean-up we went to Kevin's grandma's house to help her with some things around her house. I received a phone call on my cell phone from Kevin's mom, something wasn't right. She tried calmly to tell me Kevin's dad was in an ATV accident and the ambulance was taking him to the hospital but that she wasn't sure how serious it was yet. She said she'd call me back when she knew more. She called back about an hour later and said he was in a lot of pain, it looked like he broke his ankle and maybe some ribs but they were taking him for x-rays. Kevin and I headed over to the hospital to see if there was anything we could do. We ended up staying with them in the hospital until about 10:30pm that night. They decided to admit him to the hospital because they needed to do surgery on his ankle to put it back together. He had rolled the ATV over himself and had broken 3-4 ribs, and broke his ankle in 3 places. To say the least, he was not feeling well. That night Kevin's mom and his sister and her family all stayed at our house because we are only 1 minute from the hospital. Sunday morning at 7am they took his dad into surgery. Kevin and I went down to the hospital to wait with his mom. When the surgery was over the doctor came into the waiting room and said everything went great. The put 2 screws in his ankle to put the bone back together and he said it went back together perfectly. The rest of that day was spent waiting at the hospital for them to release Kevin's dad. At about 2pm they released him from the hospital and then we had the task of getting him home. He wasn't able to use crutches because of his broken ribs (and he was still recovering from a broken arm from a month ago). So we got him into Kevin's sister's car and Kevin and Marc took him home. It was quite an ordeal to get him up the stairs and into the house. I am happy to report he is doing much better everyday. He now uses a wheelchair to get around but he is getting around more and more everyday.

Monday we woke up early again because Kevin had to work. I decided to take him to work because we had plans when he got off work. I dropped Kevin off and headed to Wal-Mart for memorial day flowers. Then I headed to the Draper cemetary to pay a visit to grandma and grandpa Nelson's grave. (the picture at the beginning of this blog is the Draper cemetary, I was suprised there were already so many flowers at 7:30 in the morning) It seems I get faster at finding it every year. I left the flowers and one of the flags. It looked like another family member had been there and left the pinwheel. The cemetary puts out flags for all the veterans. Next I took a leisurely breakfast at Mimi's Cafe (one of my favorite places). They have the best carrot bread and muffins. I thought next I'd do some shopping but it surprised me that nothing was open. It was 8am and NOTHING was open. I tried Target, Barnes and Noble, the mall... nothing. So then I decided to head up to the Salt Lake City cemetary. With the wonderful help of the Garmin I was able to find it. I always know approximately where it is but never seem to turn on the right street to find it. Now that we have this wonderful little gadget we've been able to find a lot of things a lot faster. As soon as I find the Salt Lake cemetary, as big as it is, I know right where grandpa Simpson and Uncle Dougy's graves are. They aren't hard to find.

It looked like grandma and probably DJ and Joan had already been there. I left flowers on both graves. The part of the cemetary that grandpa and Dougy are in is very easy to find because there are a lot of apostles in the same area. There are many large family head stones and there were a lot of flowers in the area. Not far from grandpa and Dougy's graves is President and Sister Hinckly's grave. I decided to walk over and pay my respects. There were a lot of well wishers. One thing that touched me was a little note from a young girl to President Hinckly telling him how much she loved him and appreciated him. There were many wonderful notes and flowers, I wish I could have captured it all to share with everyone, but here is the picture I did capture;

After I was done at the cemetary it was almost time to pick Kevin up from work. I went and sat at the airport for a little while and read a book, it was kind of nice to have a little down time. I picked Kevin up and we went up to Scott and Amy's house in Syracuse. We hung out at their house for a little while then went to Amy's mom's house for a BBQ. We had some yummy food! Amy had marinated some beef and chicken and shrimp then put it on skewers on the grill. We also grilled some vegetables on the grill. Just as we were ready to eat it started pouring down rain. It got really cold but it was still fun! Carley and Grayson and their kids were there, Jenny and Greg (Scott's sister) and their family were there. And Chris, Scott's mom, was there. We love feeling a part of their family!

After the BBQ we headed to Ogden to see Indiana Jones. I thought the movie was OK but the alien thing was a little too far fetched. We had a good weekend overall!

Biggest Loser Family Style

2008-05-03T15:57:00.000-06:00

My (Jennifer's) family has decided to do the "Biggest Loser" up until our family reunion in July. I am posting this on our blog so that I might stick to it a little better. In the first week I have lost 2 pounds! (Yeah for me!) Kevin and I are trying to eat healthier and exercise on a regular basis. This morning (Saturday) Kevin woke up at 6am to go play basketball with some guys in our ward. I was so proud of him and felt like I needed to pull myself out of bed. So, at 6:30 I went down to our basement and walked on the treadmill. We were both pretty happy with ourselves. We are committed to winning this! After the morning exercise and clean-up we went to Salt Lake to do some shopping to help us with our new endeavor. We started at Ross hoping for the best deal. I found a pair of New Balance 815's for $20! It was meant to be. Then we headed down the road to Kohl's. Kevin found a pair of basketball shoes - Converse to be exact- for $30! We decided we were making the right choices with all this good fortune coming our way! There are still a couple of things we would like to get to help us on our way but we decided to go to a movie instead... We saw BabyMama, I really liked it, Kevin thought it was predictable but funny. We have had a great day so far. Our next trip is to the grocery store to start eating better. We have planned our meals for the week so we should be good! If anyone has any good healthy quick recipes they would like to share we would be greatful! Also, I need some workout music, any suggestions? We will keep you posted on how well it is going.

Update...

2008-04-06T08:20:00.000-06:00

I guess I'm not that great at keeping up with the blogging... With working so much lately, when I get home getting on the computer is one of the last things I want to do... Anyhow, I will try to remember what has gone on in our lives.
My mom came for a visit at the end of March. She stayed with my grandma for the most part but we were able to see her a couple of times. Then she and my grandma spent the night on Friday night and we played games. On Saturday we went shopping and of course, had to make the stop at Wienerschnitzel to pick up some goodies for my dad's Easter basket... Boy were they smelly! I'm sure everyone on the plane with my mom was hating that.
For Easter we went to Kevin's sister's house and had a family dinner with them and his parents and some of his sister's in-laws. For the most part it was a pretty mellow Easter. Kevin got a second guitar and a new game for the Guitar Hero playstation games. So we took that with us and everyone had a fun time with it. He also got his favorite movie in his basket- Cars! I can't tell you how many times we've watched it...
In April Kevin's schedule at work and at school has changed. So he now has Thursday and Friday off from both. This week he was pretty excited to be able to mow the lawn and fix the roof (big wind storm this winter). We can finally see our lawn! There has been so much snow this winter, we hope it is not coming back, but we can't be too sure.
We actually had a busy weekend this weekend. Kevin's brother and his wife and their three oldest daughters went on vacation. The youngest daughter is staying with grandma and grandpa for a couple of weeks. Grandma came down with a cold so we had Kylie spend the night with us on Friday. Then also on Friday night, we have a standing game night the first Friday of every month, a bunch of people came over for game night. We didn't think anyone was coming, but it is always fun to have a housefull! On Saturday we watched conference in the morning and ran errands. Saturday night our friends Scott and Amy and their four kids came over and we had a barbeque and watched a movie, then they all spent the night. What a fun weekend!
Life just wouldn't be the same without family and friends!

February Snow day

2008-03-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

While I was going through the camera for the other post, I found these pictures from our recent snow day...

This snow all fell in one night... 24". I knew it snowed but I still got ready for work, I figured my car could make it through the snow. I opened the garage to leave and you see what I found. I woke Kevin up and it took us 2-1/2 hours to dig our driveway out. (Mostly Kevin did the digging and I did the encouraging) After this day Kevin was ready to put our house up for sale...

Saturday Project

2008-03-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't "blogged" in a long while, but I've been really busy.

I don't think I've mention previously, but my company bought another company that happens to have a branch here in Salt Lake City. I have been busy trying to merge the two companies and higher someone to help me. Originally they wanted us to be merged by January 21st. I finally got the carpet replaced and the walls painted and janitors in the building in the last week. We are still waiting for phone and computer lines to be dropped in the building. The company we bought went bankrupt and the office was pretty much a disaster area. There were still people working there, but they were all guys that didn't worry about how clean or dirty things were. The first time I went into the office it grossed me out so much that I wouldn't even sit down for our meeting. I think I have it in shape now and I should be getting new furniture in this week. Hopefully by the end of March we will all be under one roof, things will be much easier then...

Now, the back to the reason I decided to start this post...

Last weekend we were at some friends house for the first time, we loved the way they had painted the inside of their house and decided it was time we get rid of some of the white in our house. When we bought our house every wall in it was white. We finally fixed that and here is the end results;

Before...

During... (primer)

After!!!

Christmas Week Re-Cap

2008-01-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

Hopefully I will remember all we did over the Christmas break...

Kevin's brother David and his wife and their daughters came for Christmas this year. What joy it was to have kids around on Christmas day! They came in late on Saturday night, so we got up Sunday and went to church. The Christmas program was our ward choir for the most part. I (Jennifer) sang in the choir and in an octet number. That night we decided to go to temple square and see the lights. They were beautiful! There were a lot of people that had the same idea so it was really crowded. Then on Christmas eve, we did a little shopping and went bowling. That was fun... even Kevin's mom was bowling with us! After bowling we went home and ate some dinner then on to the Christmas eve traditions. We exchanged Christmas eve presents and got our PJ's.

Christmas morning we got up pretty early, 6:15am, and got ready for Christmas morning. We turned on the fire and all the Christmas lights. Kevin's sister Katie and her husband Marc came out that morning to join us all. What fun and chaos commenced! The kids had so much fun with their presents. I gave Kevin and elliptical and he gave me a computer! Unfortunatly Kevin had to go to work at 10am, so we wrapped up the morning so he could get ready. When Kevin got home we had the traditional ham dinner with everyone.

The next day, my birthday, Kevin went to work, David and the girls went to Kevin's parents house, so Tiffany and I went shopping all day, oh what fun! We went to the Cheesecake factory for lunch and did some more shopping. Then we met up with everyone in Bountiful at the Mandrine for dinner, good chinese food! After dinner we came back to our house and opened presents and had ice cream cake!

Thursday David and Tiffany went home and we had to get back to reality... but it sure was a fun week!

The Fortunate Mis-hap...

2007-12-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

Today while we were cleaning the house we found a problem we were not prepared for. Kevin was working on cleaning the bathrooms (the chore a hate the most) and I was in the kitchen doing dishes. I emptied the dishwasher and then proceeded to wash some pots and pans in the sink. When I stepped close to the sink I felt a little water on the floor. My first thought was; "I must have spilled some water while I was empting the dishwasher." So I went on washing dishes. When I was finished I pulled the plug on the sink. Next thing I knew, there was a lake in our kitchen... coming from under the sink. I called to Kevin, "Kevin, I think we have a problem." To which he replied "We don't have time for this right now." You see, Kevin's brother, his wife and their four daughters are arriving from Las Vegas today for Christmas, and we will have his grandma, mom and dad, sister Katie, her husband Marc and their baby Lucy here for Christmas. Of course we thought the worst... a burst pipe. After cleaning all the "junk" from under the sink we realized it was the dispose-all leaking. We have been having problems with it not disposing the food anyway, so we decided we would run to Home Depot and replace it. I asked Kevin if he thought he could do it himself or if he knew someone who could help him. He called his dad's cousin Scott, who lives here in Tooele. Scott promptly came over, I ran to Home Depot- twice, and we had a new higher horse power dispose-all. We were so greatful to Scott for helping us out of our jam- he has been really good about doing that for us many times. We got to talking to Scott and he said, "you guys have a lot of room in your basement, you could put a home gym down here. I have a treadmill I'm not using." It ended up that he also had a stationary bike he wasn't using and a weight lifting set. Kevin went over to pick up the treadmill- to help Scott out and get it out of his dining room, and came back with all three pieces. So, our unfortune sink problem turned into a fortunate event for us. We now have a home gym in our basement and the fee is only $5 a week... just kidding. The agreement with Scott is he will come over here to use the equipment and we will "store" it for him. We are hoping it will help us out too!

December- So far...

2007-12-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

We have decorated the house for Christmas. It is so exciting for us to have kids around this year for Christmas, David and Tiffany are going to come up with their 4 daughters! It makes all the decorating worth while.

We (Kevin) have shoveled the driveway and sidewalk about a dozen times already...

On this particular day, Kevin shoveled the driveway twice and then the next day also...

We are not so sure about all this snow that falls in Utah. Although Kevin is enjoying being able to get around in his manly truck!

Kevin is hoping for a snow blower soon... Santa's not so sure about that.

We had our ward Christmas party... It was breakfast, a beatiful slide show about Christ, the Chior sang (Jennifer included), the primary sang (Jennifer included), and we had a special visitor (Kevin included). This is the second year Kevin has helped out for Santa Claus...

Kevin wrote our Christmas letter this year, we decided to include it here in case we missed anyone when sending them out:

Well 2007 is coming to a close and in looking back it was big year for the Sampson household! As always, when looking back at the past year we remember our family and friends. We saw many of you and Kevin even got a chance to go to San Diego and see Ray, Tammy, Walter, and Karen’s families. After seeing all of their kids grown Kevin came home and said he felt old! If it was at a Family Reunion seeing everyone or spending Thanksgiving with Scott and Amy’s family, how lucky we are to have such good friends and Family!

Now that all that mushy stuff is out of the way, here is our last year in review.

Jennifer had a great year! She is the manager of a paper office in Salt Lake (think “The Office”) and her sales staff grew this year. She had one of her favorite callings as the ward librarian, and then was moved to the sunbeams. It requires more work and patience but she does enjoy the kids!

Kevin is still working on out doing her, but another year goes to Jennifer. Kevin started working for T.S.A. (airport screening) in March and enjoys it very much. He is still trying to finish school and this summer he should do just that! So guess what you get to hear in next year’s letter!?

We want everyone to know how much we miss you and want to see you again. It is hard to believe this is our first full year in Utah and we do enjoy it, but it does show us what we miss about other places. To everyone a very Merry Christmas and we hope 2008 will be a great year for everyone! Hope to see you all soon!
Love,

The Sampsons
Kevin and Jennifer

We have also done enough shopping to last us awhile- it was all pretty fun though. Christmas will be great!

Thanksgiving... and the aftermath

2007-11-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

First, let me say- I forgot the digital camera at Thanksgiving, but Kevin bought a desposible camera, so when we get those pictures I will post them here...
Thanksgiving this year was a little different for us. Kevin had to work from 11am to 4pm. So I was home alone. I went to the store and bought the groceries to make the beans for dinner and then decided to go to a movie, a family tradition. I saw Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I thought it was so cute. But it was a little weird to be at the movie by myself. Kevin called just as the movie was ending and told me they were letting him off work early because the airport was just dead. I ran home, got the stuff for dinner, picked up Kevin and then we went to Scott and Amy's house in Syracuse. We were a couple hours early so we were able to play with the kids and hang out with Scott and Amy. We had a great feast! Amy's mom Suzi was there. Scott's mom Chris was there, Scott's sister Jenni and her husband Greg and their kids Sidney and Taylor were all there. We had a little crowd... My favorite dish this year was Jenni's stuffing, which is funny because I like stuffing but it has never been a favorite. The stuffing had apples and craisins in it, the next time I see Jenni I will get the recipe. I have been craving it since Thanksgiving. After dinner and desert (a feast in itself) we sat around and talked and had a lot of fun. We sure love spending time with Scott and Amy and their families!
The day after Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days to shop! So this year I decided I was going to do it again. But the more I thought about it I wasn't so sure, so I convinced myself that I didn't NEED to go to all the stores, Wal-mart had the two things I really wanted so that would do. I set my alarm for 3:30 AM, when I woke up at 5 AM I realized my clock was set for PM instead of AM. After a little wavering I decided I would still go, there was still a chance what I wanted would be available. I got to Wal-mart and actually was able to get the two things a wanted. It was amazing to me what a buying frenzy people get into on that day. I realized that all these years I've been getting caught up in it too, it's a good realization. I figured maybe the extra sleep helped me to think more clearly. Next year I'll still go, because I HAVE to, but I'll not get so caught up (we'll see).

Pear and Raspberry Dutch Oven Cobbler

2007-11-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

Here is the recipe for the cobbler Kevin made...
1 large can of pears (or 2 regular size cans) with juice
1 bag of frozen raspberries
1 box of white cake mix
1 cube of butter- cut in pieces
Dump in the pears, top with raspberries. Pour cake mix over pears and raspberries. Put in cut up butter around cake mix. Cover and cook with coals for about 40-50 minutes. 10-13 coals on bottom and 13-15 coals on top of dutch oven.

Kevin's Triumph...

2007-11-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

Our ward's Fathers and Sons/Turkey Shoot outing was this weekend. They were having a dutch oven cookoff for dinner on the first night. Kevin decided he wanted to participate, which made me a little nervous because he has never cooked in a dutch oven before. I worried and worried about it, beacuse that's what I do best. My thought was, he is either going to be so frustrated (because I wasn't going to be there to tell him what to do (me thinking he NEEDS me all the time)) with the result that he would never do it again, or he would be so proud of himself and I would have to come to the reality that he doesn't need me to tell him what to do all the time. In preparation for the cookoff Kevin did some research on the internet and talked to a couple people. He came up with a chicken recipe off the internet and his sister Katie and her husband Marc gave him a good idea for a pear and raspberry cobbler for desert. Kevin went out and bought a new dutch oven. We seasoned it (that's a whole other story in it's self). And Marc and Katie let him borrow a dutch oven, they also lent him some tongs, cookbooks, a chimney, and a tool to lift the lids. Kevin was so excited, and I was still so worried. He called me Friday night after dinner and told me it went great, to my relief and dismay. He said everyone at the campout thought he was a pro at dutch oven cooking because he had all the tools. Of course he was not going to tell them it was his first time... Saturday morning when he came home I was helping him unload the truck, lo and behold- there was a brand new dutch oven still in the box... He had won the cookoff! I then realized again that he is such a great man and I don't need to tell him what to do all the time, a triumph for both of us.

-Jennifer

Our Nieces and Nephews!

2007-11-17T07:23:00.000-07:00

These are Todd (Jennifer's sister) and Kelly's kids; Whitney, Katelyn, Lauren, and Dustin.

I just had to add this picture of Dustin in here, because I love it!

This is Scott (Jennifer's brother) and Wendy's family in Hawaii, they just got back. Eric, Rachel, Andrew, and Brian!

These are Becky (Jennifer's sister) and Tom's kids; Brady, Daphni, and Zakary.

This is Brittney (Jennifer's sister) and Casey's youngest, Owen.

This is Brittney (Jennifer's sister) and Casey's second oldest, Austin, enjoying Tillamook icecream!

These are old pictures, sorry. This is Brittney (Jennifer's sister) and Casey's oldest, Emily (looking at the camera) Whitney is sitting next to her.

These are Tyler (Jennifer's brother) and Cassidy's kids, Dax and Kailey. This picture is a little outdated, but their blog link is on my page...

These are David (Kevin's brother) and Tiffany's girls. Kylee, Realynn, Sidney, and Jeamyn (hopefully I didn't butcher the spelling of their names, I probably need to be corrected)
This is Braden, Kristi and Carl's youngest son. Everyone enjoys Grandma and Grandpa's treehouse.

This is Austin in Grandma and Grandpa's treehouse. Austin is Kristi (Kevin's sister) and Carl's oldest son.

This is our newest niece, Lucy Kay Steed. She was born on November 7th 2007. Lucy is Katie(Kevin's sister) and Marc's daughter. This is Hailey and Maleah (spelling?) Marc's daughters that live in New York. Kevin loves to tease Hailey about the Yankees...

This is Ayden, our adopter nephew, Emerson's brother. Ayden is Kevin's buddy, he gets so excited to see Kevin. Whenever we go visit the Taylor's Ayden wants to come home with us.

This is Emerson, our friend's daughter, we consider her one of our nieces! Scott and Amy live close by, this picture is from Emerson's birthday party.

First Blog

2007-11-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm finally setting up a blog spot. I just love looking at everyone elses. Hopefully I will keep up with this and actually have some pictures to post on here. Maybe it will make me start taking more pictures... we'll see.