Finals are over, and now the season can begin! Happy Holiday!

Daniel and I both survived our finals, mine were not as gruesome as his were. He has had a difficult time with his trebuchet group through CEU and their willingness to work and pull their own weight. We are both very happy that he is finished with that project and his pre-engineering class. He has worked hard over the semester and is hoping that his hard work has paid off in good grades. For now he is back to working fulltime for Nielsen's through the three week of break before spring semester starts. I hope that there will be time for him to have a little bit of a break and have some fun, but while the snow is covering all of the unfound sheds I'm not sure what he has in mind.I gladly survived my Level III practicum. The classroom experience that I had in Mrs. Gagon's 5th grade class was wonderful and made all of the homework and stress that I had in the beginning of the semester worth it. I am hoping to receive high grades in all of my classes, but we shall see how hard my professors grade my practicum work. The day of finishing my practicum I signed up to be a substitute teacher in the Carbon School District, only desiring to sub at the elementary schools. Luckily I have been able to sub a few times in the class were I worked for my practicum, and will work there again Monday. I would never want to substitute for a profession, I would rather have my own class, than deal with the students who like to test the substitutes :) Good thing I am becoming a teacher!

Plans for the rest of the month include Nielsen's company part tonight. We will go have an enjoyable evening with Daniel's parents, Cody and Daniel's sister Maegan who Cody invited to go with him. Sunday there is the Christmas Music Program that our Stake puts on with a few other churches in the area, where I, my dad, and little brother Chantz will be singing and/or playing my flute. Then next Saturday is that day that I am very excited for!! Linda bought Daniel and I tickets as a thankyou for helping her at the studio so much. We get to go see "The Nutcracker" at the Capitol Theatre in SLC. Daniel isn't overly excited, but I told him we could go each at Sizzler as it now seems bearable to him. :) He owes me for my willingness to go hunting, shed hunting, and putting up with all of his sheds in the middle of our living room floor!

Hope everyone is having a good holiday season! Be safe with the snow that is falling, and have a Merry Christmas!

Long Time No Blog And No Time To Do So...

Nothing overly exciting has gone on in the last month in which we haven't been blogging. We have both been busy with school and now it is getting down to the wire for both of us.

I have loved being in the 5th grade classroom I am in at Creekview Elementary.. I don't want to leave when next week is over. I would love to do my Student Teaching in that same classroom, or even at the same school. I actually feel like a teacher, and it excites me to see the kids grasp and enjoy what I teach them. :)

Daniel is working to get his final trebuchet changes done before the 4th when they will be launching milk jugs full of water. He has his schedule set up for the next semester, we are glad he decided to stick to school, only bad thing is he's taking 19 credit hours to stay on track and that means he will be busier than he is now. :(

We are still alive and kicking and hanging in there. It was nice to have a little bit of break for the Thanksgiving Holiday, hope everyone's was safe and enjoyable!!

Happy Happy Birthday Daniel!

Wednesday, the 28th was Daniel's 24th birthday. :D Unfortunately it hasn't felt much like his birthday with it being Midterm week at school, and his busy trebuchet project that he hasn't been receiving very much help on from the other group members.

Sunday night I made Daniel's favorite dinner knowing that I would have class and not have time to make it on his birthday. We had cheesy (funeral) potatoes, ham, and my rolls that Daniel loves.

Daniel informed me that it was his "Birthday Week" and that he was going to try and drag it out to 5 days this year instead of 4 like last year. I had to try very hard to not let Daniel open his presents early. I have that problem, where I get so excited to give presents that I hate waiting to give them to people....

Luckily I made it - I need to get the pictures from the camera on here, but these will do for now. Daniel received Transformers II and a Porter Cable Orbital Sander from me, the new Brad Paisley CD from sister Mindi, gun sling from brother Conlee, and Wrenches, Four-foot level, and yummy pickled eggs from Momma Jan and Papa Eric. Daniel is hard to shop for :) especially since he will always want tools.. and I am not good at picking out the "right" ones :D. This is also why my parents haven't figured out what to get for him yet.

Daniel was able to see his family on his birthday, but only for a little while, because we had to be to the church so they could set him apart as 2nd counselor in the Stake YM Presidency... they think he's not busy enough...

It was a good day, but I wish it could have felt more like a birthday for him.. Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

My First Buck... It's a Trophy!

This past week Daniel and I have been making every effort possible to find me a deer to shoot at. Last Saturday we happened to see a 3 point running.. unfortunately, no shot. Then Tuesday night we were with Daniel's cousin Travis hunting in Orangeville and happened to surprise a two point with his lady friend. He stopped at about 100 yards, during the time that Travis and Daniel begin to freak out and tell me to, "Load a bullet! Get out of the truck! Shoot the buck! Hurry before me runs away!" I was breathing hard because of all the hoopla that had happened already, and finally got the gun on the shooting sticks. I tried to shoot the gun three times before realizing I had failed to take it off safety.. and then I shot under the buck! Talk about being stressed, excited, and having a true hunting experience.

A little disappointed we headed back out to try and find me a buck to shoot at before it got dark. At the last possible moment Travis and Daniel spotted more deer, and confirmed the presence of horns on one. There were about five does with the buck, and Daniel had to point the scope so I could find them because I couldn't find them with my naked eye (I'm blind). Daniel told me, "Wait til he walks out in front, okay, now he's the front deer looking back at us, take your shot when you're ready."

Luckily Daniel hadn't put the safety on or I think I would have had problems again. I took a shot at this lovely little buck below at about 150 yards, he was quartering away, and as Daniel says, "You nailed him clean pilgrim!" (Jerimiah Johnson) And therefore, I was overjoyed and very excited to have shot and killed my first buck. He only went about 30 yards before he was down - and if you can't tell, he is a spike by 2.

Travis told Daniel to rest my 25-06 on his antlers... :) As you can tell it needed a little bit of help from Daniel.

See it forks on it's right side, I promise!

This seems to be the tradition this year from Daniel's family, Mindi did this with her elk, and his Aunt Nettie with her deer. So, I joined the club. I think the feet are cool, you can watch the tendons move as you move the hooves. Happy Hunting!

A break from school work. . .

On Labor Day, Daniel was able to go down to Greenriver and spend the day with Cody hiking all over and finding shed horns. They had a blast and also had a very productive day as is shown in the pictures below. Between the two of them they found about 40 horns.

Daniel with about 20 heavy horns on his back.

On saturday the 12th, Daniel and I traveled back to Greenriver to take mules up with Cody and pack the horns out. Along the way, I spotted this shed from the truck. :) It's the biggest deer shed I have found thus far, and isn't much compared to all those elk sheds, but I was happy.

While riding up to the horns to pack out, we stopped and glassed across the ridges with our binos, and Daniel spotted this horn by seeing only one tine. He hiked up to it and found a good 6 point shed.

Daniel and I sitting on our mules

Cody looking estatic with all the horns on Otis

The haul from their Labor day adventure, plus a few more horns, including my deer shed in front and to the left.

All the sheds in the back of Cody's truck. A huge pile that we took with us to Ray's Tavern for dinner and parked directly out front so the boys could keep an eye on their treasure. They also picked up two more deer sheds on the way down.

Fun was had on both days, and it was a nice break from school and good stress reliever!

Two new additions to our family..

Monday, Daniel was able to shoot at this big buck at 20 YARDS!.. He is still on cloud 9..

Unfotunately, I didn't get to see the shot, I was waiting on the four wheeler to pick him up after a "short walk" that turned into an hour and a half. After calling me on the radio to come get him, and after I had started the fourwheeler, he called back "Kiera! Turn off the fourwheeler and stay where you're at!" I had no idea what was going on.. til he said "KIERA! I just shot the BIGGEST BUCK I've ever had a chance at!!"

Daniel's buck green scored 168 and 6/8 with a 27 and 7/8 outside spread!

This is the first new addition to our family.. eventually it will hang in our house. :)

On Tuesday, we were blessed with another new addition, Raegan RuthAnn Richens, 8 lbs 1 oz, 21 inches long. My brother and sister-in-law had their first child. We haven't been able to see her yet, but we are very excited to!!

Being held by Grandpa Richens... She is going to be able to get whatever she wants from him..

Sleeping on Grandma Richens' lap, precious and sweet. Brown hair like her daddy :)

Being held in mom's arms

My oh my, where has the summer gone?

Nothing too exciting has been happening in our lives over the past few weeks. Daniel and I are getting things in order for us both to start school. He will start on the 17th and I start again on the 24th (one more year for me! woot!) It is International Days this weekend here in Price and my dancers are dancing this year at opening ceremonies and in the park on Saturday. It'll be fun to see them dance again, I know they've missed it, as have I.

We are going the rodeo in Castle Dale this weekend, we haven't been since Daniel and I were dating, but I convinced Daniel to go with me on Saturday evening.

At lastly, for the past two evenings I have had the "privelege" :) of watching bow hunting, and last night Daniel was getting excited for the bow hunt this year that he wanted to go out and practice shooting his bow... in his bright green mountain dew pajama pants. I love this boy!

4th of July Fun!

This past weekend we were able to go to Richfield and spend time with Daniel's family. I have never seen any fireworks other than those here in Price at the Fairgrounds, but the show down in Richfield was amazing compared to those here. We went fishing with Daniel's Aunt and Uncle and their 5 kids, the night before we ran to Walmart to get the girls pink fishing poles that Brian had promised them. Luckily they had just gotten in a new batch of Princess poles, surprisingly the eleven dollar poles were the best at catching the fish!

Brigham, 5, with the catch of the day, he told everyone later that he was a world class fisherman!

Jake, 10, with his catch on the princess pole :)

Colton,12, with his big one, also caught on the princess pole

Maddie, 3, my shadow, with the stray kitten that showed up at Grandma's

Little Maren, 2, figured out how to swing, biggest blue eyes!

Little Cassidy, 3, loves her "Dano"

Most of Sunday Daniel devoted his time to unclogging Grandma's sink, they finally got it cleared out around 4 o'clock. Luckily it happened when we were there to help resolve the problem. I went to sacrament meeting with Debbie and the kids, Brigham had a nice chuckle about the size of the sacrament bread (it was miniature because there were so many people in sacrament meeting).

And last but clearly not least, Daniel had a very fun experience - he got to shoot to his Uncle Kirk's 50 Caliber rifle, hence the video. He now wants one eventually, even though it is not economically wise to shoot them at all, its about 2-5 bucks a bullet. He had a blast, they were shooting at 1000 yards. I'll have him write more when he is home next.. not sure when that'll be, he's working on the skyling up Huntington Canyon for the next two weeks.

We have a video, but I couldn't get it to work, I will try again!

Fishin up at ole' Pete's Hole

Daniel and I decided to take a short fishing trip up Joe's Valley to Pete's Hole before I had to go in to work at 1. We left at 6:30 to make it up there in enough time to fish, and to give us enough time to make it home for work.


I like to use my lucky lime green lure, and it was lucky today! Above is my one of the littler ones I caught, but it was really pretty so I wanted to put this pic up. I caught 8 fish and had many other little bites compared to Daniel's 3. Part of his "success" is due to the fact that he kept feeding a little chipmunk sunflower seeds and shooting at the pot gut intruder instead of casting out and reeling in.



However - I have to tell the funny story of Daniel's first fish. I traded him poles to give him a chance to catch a fish. With me casting out on his pole I caught a little one first cast.. :D Next he finally caught a fish on my pole and was determined to get a picture with the "d@*#" fish as it spit the hook and fell to the ground, he was kickin' it up on the shore to keep it from flopping back in the lake, dropping it 2 or 3 times, I should have switched the camera to video mode and recorded it, but I was laughing so hard it brought me to tears. So I finally got a pitcure of his with his fish :P I hope its still alive with the grip that he had on it.

It was an great morning, fun and muddy, but the best of days!

First Camping Trip..

This past weekend Daniel and I went on our first ever camping trip with just the two of us. We pulled his Dad's trailer up on Thousand Lakes and found ourselves a nice, quiet camp spot a ways from the road.

We tried fishing the first day, but gave up due to the wind - which was miserable. We decided to fair the wind via the four-wheeler and go shed hunting. After taking a 2 to 2.5 hour hike to try and see if Daniel had seen a shed or if it was truly a stick, we walked back to the four-wheeler empty handed. Driving down the road I spotted this little beauty poking up through the sage brush, only able to see the one tine.

Upon picking it up, it was a nice, little brown 5 point elk shed, not bad for my first elk shed Daniel says.

We didn't get totally skunked, Daniel spotted a 4 point Deer shed from the road as well. It was a fun weekend to be able to get away with just the two of us. Even though we don't have kids, we don't get very much alone time because of the busy lives we both still lead. We are planning to go again as soon as we can.

Weddings, Graduations, and Ex-boyfriends

Last weekend we were able to travel up to American Fork to see Candra and Jacob get married. It was a fun day to be able to go and be in the temple with them, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I am broken emotionally because I cry at almost everything now, not pregnant, just moved by lots of different things.

The temple grounds were gorgeous as seen in these pictures; beautiful tulips that Daniel offered to go and pick for all of us girls. It was a fun day to get away from Price, and Daniel was a good sport about waiting for an hour after Candra got married so that we could take pictures. He even modeled Caitie's lovely sun glasses for us.

After pictures were finally done, and all had gotten a good amount of May sun, we had an adventure finding Olive Garden to each lunch, and guess what! They had gnocchi! My favorite Italian dish! It wasn’t as good as when Steven and Linel Denison used to make it at Briccone’s but it was still very tasty.

Yesterday we were able to see Jared graduate from high school. It is crazy to think that he is done, that I graduated only three years ago, and that we are all getting older. It was a good ceremony, and I had the lovely time of sitting next to my ex-boyfriend Nick. His mother, Candra's mother, and my mother found this all rather funny. Thanks mom for choosing the seat. It wasn't bad, nor that awkward of a situation, just a different situation to be put in, and one that I wouldn’t necessarily choose for myself. It was nice to chat with him, and to see these kids graduate, as well as the look on Superintendent Bueno's face when Mikelle Dickson thanked teachers for teaching the students about STDs.

Before this becomes too long I'll close by wishing everyone a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day Weekend!

Made it through Spring Semester!

Spring semester is over! Grades are in, and I didn’t fair too badly. I pulled four A’s and one C (which is the grade that I was hoping for in my ridiculous physics class!) I was able to maintain a 3.57 GPA that will hopefully qualify me for a tuition scholarship for the next year.

Other things that have been going on, Daniel has been working at the Millsite Golf Course for two weeks now. It has been nice to be able to have him home every night for a change. He’ll be there for maybe a few more weeks, then either back to Crescent Junction, or who knows where in this construction business.

This past weekend was a busy one. Daniel and I helped my dad and Uncle Jon reroof my grandpa’s house. It was actually a fun experience, until the soreness and stiffness set in. I learned the “art” of setting the shingles in a step pattern so that they lay how they need to, I hammered the tar paper down, and even worked the nail gun nailing shingles. So if anyone needs new shingles J it was lots of fun to work alongside Daniel and it’s something we both love to do. We were able to get one side of the house done despite the rain and wind that we had. After we finished at my grandpa’s we invited Daniel’s sister Mindi and her boyfriend to go get Coldstone (dinner for us). It was fun.

The next day we headed for Richfield to get my ring cleaned and make sure the prongs we still okay, we saw Daniel’s cousin Julie’s new baby boy, he was so cute! And had a ton of hair! We visited with Grandma and Grandpa Hansen, and also purchased a chainsaw so that Daniel can start building furniture and have his own chainsaw to use. I think he is spoiled..

Coming up in the next few weeks we have a possible camping trip, dance review, working at Grandma Wilson’s house relaying concrete in the driveway, mother’s day, Jared’s graduation, Birthdays, and lots more. We are doing well, and still plugging away at life!

When it rains, it pours...

To me it always seems that when one thing goes wrong, there are numerous other things that begin to fall apart. I would have to say it all started when my vacuum began to no longer be a working vacuum. We need to take it to Hoover to have them look at it, and haven't made it yet, so I am borrowing my mother-in-laws old one until ours can be fixed. I hated not having a working vacuum!


Then our microwave died. Unbeknownst to Caitie the microwave was on the fritz and died after she popped two bags of popcorn in it. Needless to say, my brother and sister-in-law who has the same (Emerson) had their's die a few months ago. Be forewarned, do not purchase the Emerson brand of microwave from Walmart, it will eventually overheat and stop working.


Next, we paid the truck off back in March and have been planning to get new tires on it and finally decided it was the time to do so. Thanks to Big-O and Courtney for their help we are now paying for tires. Doesn't it always seem that you begin to have vehicle problems after you pay it off? Only a day after we got the new tires on the truck we were traveling to Ferron. On the hill just north of Ferron we ran into a problem with the truck. The truck started to slow down on its own and there was a weird grinding sound, then the ABS and emergency brake light came on. After calling Daniel's dad and trying to figure out what the problem was for 3 hours it was concluded that the wheel barring that we had been warned about a year ago finally gave out. We called a tow truck because we could not drive the truck forward more than 4 feet and had it towed to J&D in Castle Dale. Amongst angry tears from me, and Daniel trying to always make me laugh, we had a day of all days. We now get to pay to have the wheel barring replaced, and while at it have them replace the ball joints that are wearing out.

It just seems that when you are ahead of the game, Heavenly Father likes to give trials to help us grow and learn from.

Here is an older picture of a predicament that we were put in when Daniel failed to listen to his wife and decided to straddle two sink holes... we sank anyway :) Oh the joys and surprises that life brings!

Test Results Are Finally In!

So for over the past month I have been waiting apprehensively and impatiently to find out if I passed the Praxis or not. The Praxis is the test that I have to pass by October so that I can do my student teaching next January. They told us after we finished the test that they would be up about 4 weeks after the test, so finally today (4 days late mind you) they finally had them up, and I PASSED! yay! another big thing out of the way for the education program.

I'll give in..

After being told numerous times by Carli in our reading class that I should create a blog I finally decided to give in. It gave me something somewhat productive to do while sitting in my Physics class. This is the problem with having a computer in the classroom with you. Being new to the blogging world it may take me a bit to get used to things, any suggestions are appreciated!