November was a busy month

To start the month off, I had a girls night with the Hunt side of the family.  Every fall we go somewhere, ususally Park City and have a girls night and do a craft of some sort.  This year we made framed calendars...... I don't have a picture of the finished product, but it was fun and the turned out really well!  Next year is my turn for the craft.......if anyone has any suggestions, I would GREATLY appreciate it!  ha ha ha (I am not craft minded)

These are my two newest nephews, the one on the right is about a month and a half older than the other.  They were so cute i just couldn't resist putting them on here :)

Here we are!

We spent Thanksgiving Day with Thomas's family but we didn't take any pictures for some reason.  The next day, we went down to Fairfield to cut down some Christmas trees.  The spot we picked was up on this huge, steep hill right across from a coal mine.  Ha ha ha, it was awesome.  They would cut the trees down and then just let them slide down the mountain to someone waiting below.  I tried scaling the mountain once, but it pooped me out.  I am so out of shape!

 Here are our trees!  Yes there are 7 of them.  We loved ours this year and I just realized I don't have a picture of it........ I will have to post it later.

So while we were up visiting for Thanksgiving, we decided to take some family pics for the christmas card this year.  Because we were in our backyard, Shadow (the dog) decided he wanted to be in them too.......... ha!  This was our first attempt and it wasn't too bad except the he isn't looking at the camera and Torie is reaching out for him.

A couple of pics later, we all thought this was going to be the one because Shadow actually sat down for us......... the only problem is that someone is missing...... do you know who?  NONE of us knew that my mom had fallen over! (except maybe Torie who is laughing really hard).  Apparently Shadow had run right between her and my dad, pushing her over.  She was laughing so hard, she didn't make any noise so we didn't notice until Thomas got up to go look at the picture and noticed my mom wasn't in it.  It was hilarious!  I wanted her to send this one out in her christmas letter, but there wasn't room for the explanation in the letter. 

We took a few more, but none of them were very good on their own...... so I chopped them all up and pieced them together.  Below is the result.  For a first timer, i thought it turned out pretty good.  For those of you who get my parents christmas letter, you'll notice this isn't the picture they used..... only because it was too wide for the format they were using.  But I spent a lot of time on this one, so I decided to post it :)

Anyway, November flew by really quickly, not to mention I was slammed with work to grade for my students and Thomas was getting ready for finals.  Phew!  We survived.

My Birthday and the rest of October

For my birthday, my family took me on a Halloween Float that happens every year in Provo.  We had a while to wait, so we started taking random pics of ourselves.  We couldn't see what we were taking pictures of because it was so dark, but these were some of the ones that turned out.

Like father, like son

 My parents didn't realize that I was taking the picture :)

We put the camera on a mailbox so we could all be in it, and right as we were waiting for the blinking light to stop, a van started backing into the driveway.  Luckily we got our pic before they drove in front of it. :)

 This was my birthday cake and I am blowing out the candle :)

 Later that weekend, Thomas's side of the family all drove down to American Fork and we celebrated and at real cake then.  Thanks for making that long trip down everyone!

We decided we wanted to carve pumpkins for Halloween but really I just wanted all the pumpkin seeds, even if I had to dig through all the goo to get them. 

Fish guts gross me out, but pumpkin guts?  No problem!

 Mine is the "o" face on the left, Thomas's is the one up high, and our friend's pumpkin is the skeleton one.

The rest of October we really fun (my toe finally healed!).  I even got to visit the Church's Jerusalem set they built out in Santaquin(???) and it was awesome!  We took some pics but they asked us not to post them on anything, so I can't put them up on here, but now that the videos are starting to come out, it is fun to think "Oh, I stood there!" or "I totally know where that is!"  Ha ha ha ha.



In other news

This is going to be a post about the happenings since summer ended.... sorry to family who have already heard these stories!

So in July, there was a Butler family get-together where we played shoe-less soccer and leg wrestled.  Two things happened to me that day: 1. my foot got crushed in the soccer game when someone landed on it after jumping into the air.  2. my neck was injured from a leg wrestling contest that I lost when I got rolled up over my head and pulled every muscle.  So for the last couple of months I have been going to a chiropractor to help align my neck and it has been slowly working.  Well about 2 weeks ago, i mentioned that my foot was still hurting from the being stepped on.  He adjusts bones and i figured he could just adjust them back into place.  Well he grabbed a tuning fork, hit it (made it vibrate) and then held it on the sore spot.  It was uncomfortable, but bearable.  However, when he stopped the vibrating I noticed an immediate relief.  That was his clue that I had a fracture in my foot.  Say what??  Yup, that's right, I have been hiking caves, hiking in Yellowstone and Jenny Lake and teaching on a fractured foot and I didn't even know it?!  I mean, it couldn't have been a bad fracture since it hasn't slowed me down, but that is just sad that I didn't even realize I had broken something.  Don't worry it gets better.  The next day I had an appt. with a different doctor who was going to take care of a wart that had recently developed on the bottom of my big toe.  He had tried zapping it once before but it do anything, so he was going to make sure it did something this time..... and he acheived his goal.  First he shaved a little bit of skin off the top of it (didn't hurt), then he froze it twice as much as he did the last time (hurt a little bit, but not too bad), then he put an ointment on it, i think it is an acid of some sort, and the put tape over that to help seal it in.  Man o man was that a mistake.  I haven't been able to walk on that toe for 2 weeks now.  That wouldn't be so bad, except that it is on the same foot that was fractured, and because I can't walk on the toe, I have had to walk on the part that is fractured.  So NOW I am feeling the fracture, but there isn't anything I can do about it.  I have to wear flip flops cause they allow me to walk a little more normally.  I can't wear any type of closed toe shoe because it touches the blistered spot, which is about the size of a dime, and that isn't fun because it is getting cold outside!  Sigh.  Lesson learned, what lesson that is, I don't know, but it is learned!

On a happier note, for the first time since we have been married, I got a flower pot and I managed to keep it alive!  Here are some pics to prove it:

 The other two pots are from Mother's Day gifts. 

 The little pink one I have had since the first year we were married (living with my Aunt Cindy... do you remember those?) I put it in a bigger pot, moved it outside and it really took off!

 Can't wait for when we have a place for more flowers!

Other than that, school has started for both of us again.  I have a student teacher, and it has been really fun.  A lot of work, but fun nonetheless.  The weirdest thing is that she is from Woods Cross, has the same birthday as my brother, Devin (even the same year and was in the same hospital) and married a guy with his same name......
Thomas is loving most of his classes and really enjoys engineering, which is good since that is what he will probably do for the rest of his life. 
Well I guess that is all for now!  It feels great to be caught up, although I know it won't last for long.

Timpanogos Caves

So a week later, we decided  we wanted to hike Timp. Caves with Devin since he was on his mission the last time we did it.  It is a long, hard hike up that took us about an hour, but we didn't try and do it fast. 

Devin, fulfilling his lifelong dream of flying......j/k

 The point of no return, as I affectionally call it :)

 They are past the point of no return, and obviously Devin is very concerned.

 The view of Utah Valley from the trail.  The canyon is so beautiful!

 A fitting picture for Elder Holland's talk about how you can't chose both sides, eventually you will have to choose one or the other......although I have to say Thomas got pretty far :)

 Can't remember the name of this formation, but was big and it was cool.

 I had to include this pic because of the little girl in the lower right hand corner.  We walked into this room and she said "Wooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww"  It was hilarious! (she was about 1 and a half.)  However, from that point on, she cried and screamed until we got out.  Thus the trip was rushed and not very fun. 

 Another cool formation, don't know who the guy is tho.

 Caramel Marshmellows!

 Good thing we aren't that tall!

 Suck it in and watch your head!

 Don't even know what to say about this one :)

 I think this was called the Organ..... it was huge!

 Lots of little stalagtites

 Um...... again, speechless. (oh and they made us carry our backpacks in front because of all the little spaces we climbed through.)

 This is Thomas leaning back away from the ceiling.....

 Another pic of cool stalagtites and stalagmites.

 I couldn't remember if this was "the heart" of the caves...... or

 If this was......just ignore Thomas's rear end :)

 Ducking and trying to be funny :)

 I love my mom's smile in this, she looks so happy.

 This was to demonstrate some of the narrow places we had to walk through.  Such a contrast to the Minnetonka caves which are big and open.

 ooooo.... maybe this was the heart of timp?

 A little stairway that you had to bend this way and that to get around these formations. 

 Don't stand up or slip dad!

 A stalagtite and stalagmite that have almost made it to each other!

 Marshmallows drenched in caramel and chocolate.

 Good thing we can bend and walk at the same time!

 Same here.

I think they call this one the bride and groom......they are patiently waiting until they meet..... or something like that ha ha ha ha.

 We made it out alive! 

 Returning from the point of no return. :)

 This is a map of the trail up and through the caves.  Oh and the story of how this one was found is similar to the Minnetonka caves.  A boy was just wandering, tracking a mountain lion or something and felt cool air coming out of the mountain.  What are the chances?

 Like father, like son..... only Devin needs to change the color of his hat. :)

Well that is the end of our cave exploration days for now.  I really would recommend doing them yourself.  It is so much more amazing in person!  Thanks again dad for putting it together!