Back in Rexburg

Well, we are home safe. Thanks to all of you who were praying as we traveled today! The road were not as bad as they could have been. So, tomorrow back to work for both of us. We are praying for all of you still traveling. Drive safe!

Draper 2008 Christmas card and letter.

Well, another year past and we are moving along quickly in life. I finished school in July and graduated with a BS in biology. That sure is nice to be finished. I love going to school and am sad to know that schooling is over for me, at least it is for awhile. Robert will be done with school next year. He is going to have a BA in communications and an emphasis in advertising. We are a little nervous about this because of the way the economy is right now. He is a little discouraged because his teachers all tell him that the communications field is not such a good field right now because it is the first to go when companies are doing budget cuts. So, if anyone has any job offers or suggestions for internship PLEASE let us know. We are excited to be able to see the end of our days at BYU-Idaho. One last winter in the Rexburg cold. There really is not much to report on for this past year. We have had some fun as you have noticed through our previous posts and enjoyed our family time! We have been married for almost 5 years and been in love for almost 10 wonderful years.
Well, with that I guess we will announce that we are building on to our family. I am between 6 and 7 months pregnant. I am due March 7, 2009! We are SO excited! We have been trying for quite awhile for a child and feel so blessed that God has decided to grant us this opportunity in life. My pregnancy has been a breeze! I really feel no different, other than the movements that I began to feel around Thanksgiving. It is fun and yet so surreal. We are not finding out the sex of the baby. We want you all to stayed tuned until after the baby is born to find out.
Really, that is all the news that we have. Check back for updates and more information as often as you would like. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and enjoy the short week left in the 2008. And thank you to everyone who sent us a Christmas card of their own this year. It's always nice to get some mail other than bills and junk!

The green wrench that almost stole Christmas

So, Robert and I were planning on going my family's house is Libby, MT for Christmas. On Sunday we were headed to Idaho Falls to pick up some friends from the airport and a wrench light showed up on our dashboard while driving. The car began to loose power and chug. Our friends flight was delayed because of the snow, so we turned around and didn't drive our Fusion. Needless to say that was an adventure trying to pick up our friends from the airport.
Here is that side story.... Meg and Brandon Hebdon were suppose to fly in Sunday at 10pm into the Idaho Falls airport and had asked us to pick them up. They called because their flight was delayed at about 8:30pm. No problem, we were just going to pick them up at 10:30pm instead. So, we left and that is when the car dash light turned on. Well, Meg text me and said that their plane should land in IF at about 12am. Okay, Robert and I left again, this time in our metro to pick them up. Well, we get almost to Rigby and Meg text again saying that they plane could not land, and they turned around and flew all the way back to SLC. Finally, I picked them up the next day at about noon. Those poor guys, they have one of those nightmare holiday travel stories to tell.
Anyway, back to out Christmas plan store.... So, we called Monday morning to get the car in the to dealership because it is under warranty and of coarse they could not get us in until Tuesday at 1:30. We were wanting to take off Wednesday, Christmas Eve after Robert got off work in the morning. The weather was not looking good because we had had snow storms all weekend and they were suppose to continue through Christmas. It was looking very unlikely that we would get out of Rexburg fro Christmas. We were sad! But, the car turns out that nothing huge needed to be fixed and all turned out well. Robert and I decided to go ahead and go to Libby when he got home from work on Christmas Eve. The drive was not bad and we made it here in under 9 hours. (Usually in the summer it take about 7 and 1/2 to 8hours.)

We had a great Christmas with family. Kira flew home from CT, and Josh and Shannon and his two girls came over from Kalispell. Christine, my sister in-law was here too. It was fun! We relaxed, ate, played games, and enjoyed family time just as Christmas should be. It snowed in the evening on Christmas Eve and all morning on Christmas. It was wonderful. We will be headed back to Rexburg Saturday or Sunday. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well.
These are pictures out my parent's window on Christmas Day! Enjoy the view!

The beginning of Christmas vaction

Yesterday Robert finished his last class in the afternoon and is done with school until the beginning of January. We are both so excited. Funny thing happened last night. I got off of work early and we were wanting to celebrate. However, it was graduation night and Rexburg is packed with parents and others celebrating. So, we decided to stay in. We watched some Christmas movies and we were both falling asleep just after 9pm. Boy are we losers. The first day of vacation and we got so bored that we went to bed earlier than we have in months. We got a good laugh at ourselves.
Below are This and That curled up for a long winters nap. Aren't they so cute! I guess we keep our house a little cold because even our cats wrap up in blankets.

Here is our tree. The weather beat us! On Monday night for family home evening we got out the fake one and put it up. Don't get me wrong I think it looks great, but the pine smell is missing. I guess we didn't spend any money and our house looks good.
This is a sunset just the other day. Robert took an amazing picture of it. It is my favorite color, orange! Today though we woke up to about 2 inches of snow. YEA! But now we are going to have to get snow tires. That is a budget killer.

O Christmas Tree

Robert and I were going to go get our first "real" Christmas tree yesterday, but he had church meetings in the morning and so we put it off until this morning. Well, we woke up to snow just barley covering the ground at 4:15am when Robert got up for work. We were okay with that and were still planning on going. I was a little excited about the snow because that meant that we would see all the trees and things with snow. It would make it just a little more special. So, I went back to sleep and got up just after 7:00 to be ready to go when Robert got off of work at about 7:30-8:00. It was snowing again. Robert called and said that there was a lot of wind and he was sliding around on the roads a lot when going to work. So, it has been snow which I like and am not sad about at all. The only thing is....
No tree today. Hopefully it will be soon that we get our tree, but we don't have many decorations and the house looks a little bare. We are counting on our tree to make our home look a little more like Christmas.

The rest of our Thanksgiving trip.

On Wednesday my sister Amy flew in from Texas to spend the holiday with us. That day we ate at an Indian buffet in West Hartford where Kira lives. Great food. That was all the excitement that day.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we got up and started making dinner. What a wonderful dinner we had. Kira was asked to have 4 missionaries over for dinner and they showed up right before dinner was ready. We played some games throughout the day and ate and ate and ate.

Friday morning we drove back to the JFK airport in New York City and began our travel back west. We left super early thinking there would be holiday traffic and it would take a twice as long to get to the airport. Well, it didn't. We arrived at the airport just after 10 am and our flight did not leave until almost 3 pm.We got into SLC at about 9 pm and stayed with our friends, the Loeras. The next day was just a day to chill and relax. After it got dark we went to temple square and looked at all the Christmas lights. What an amazing spirit of Christ there was. There were 2 nativity scenes set up in life like size.

This was gorgeous! It was a nativity set floating on the water with candles floating in it. Above is a close up of Joseph, Mary and Christ. Below shows the SLC temple's reflection in the water.

Here is the other nativity they had there. There were wise men to the east and also shepherds to the west. This scene was big. There was every detail of the story and as people gathered around, over an outside speaker, the story of Christmas was told. Also, at the end modern prophets bore their testimonies of this wonderful occasion.

A picture of the SLC Temple from the street as we were leaving. Beautiful!

After the lights we drove the 3 hours home and arrived safely to our cats at about midnight Saturday night. It was so sad to know it was over, but great to be home.

Icing on the cake in Boston.

Here is a picture of Boston at night from the dock of the ferry that we took to crossed the harbor and get back to the car. Thankfully we did not have to walk all the way back to the car!



After getting to the car we went to the Boston temple. What a wonderful place to end such a perfect day. The temple of coarse was wonderful and beautiful. After the temple, home we went. We got back to Kira's place at about 1:00 am.

Boston

On Tuesday, after a day of much needed rest from traveling and walking NYC, we headed to Boston, MA. It rained on us all day, but we did not mind it much because there was little to no wind and it was warm. New York City was a lot colder and had wind gusts that would chill us.

This is a picture just inside of Massachusetts at an information center.

MA has a lot of history and seems to embrace it. That is what I loved about it!
Boston was about 2 hours from Kira's house and we got there right about noon. We parked and then decided that the best thing to do was to walk the "Freedom Trail." This is a wonderfully marked trail that goes by several historic sites in Boston and Charlestown. This trail is marked by red bricks and is almost 3 miles long. We parked about half a block from the Boston Commons where the trail begins.
In this picture the history of Boston is visible by looking at the narrow streets and brick buildings everywhere. I loved this city!One of the first stops on the trail was Capitol Building. This was a beautiful building and like most of the buildings in downtown was red brick. This is a wonderful tribute to General Hooker. We thought it interesting that they named an entrance "General Hooker Entrance." Every building should have one of these as opposed to the "VIP Hooker Entrance"

Another wonderful thing we loved about Boston is that the city was built around the history. For instance there was 3 separate graveyards that were right in the middle of the town and the offices and buildings were built around them. One of the first graveyards we went to has several historical figures. One had Paul Revere and Ben Franklin's parents.

Don't mind the face that I am making I don't know why, but here I am at the headstone of Paul Revere as you can read. Of course Boston has a lot of monuments and respect paid to Paul Revere. Below is Kira at John Hancock's burial site in the same graveyard.
Above is one picture that I love! It is an amazing place to pay respect to American heroes of the past and the American Flag is in the background. Kira and I in the third graveyard on the trail. As you can see it was getting dark, mostly because of the storm because it was not long after 3pm in this picture.

Of course we saw the Cheers Bar, a must in Boston! I am not sure that they knew our names though.


This is the Old State Building where a lot of America's history took place. Just read the green sign in the picture underneath it because it tells the history a lot better than I can.

For lunch that day we dined at the oldest restaurant in America as the sign says. We had some delicious "chowda" and seafood here. The people were so nice and friendly. We really enjoyed lunch and would recommend this place to everyone. It was right on The Freedom Trail.

This is another tribute to Paul Revere in front of the Old North Church where the lanterns were lit to tell that the rebels the British were coming. "One if by land, Two if by sea."
We crossed a bridge into Charlestown and this a view of the Boston Harbor from that bridge. Here is a fire station right in the middle of Charlestown. As you can tell I like the American flag and love to see it displayed. This fire station had a really cool old look to it. That is not real fog in the picture but it's my breath being blown in front of the camera. It sure did make for a cool picture.

The Bunker Hill Monument. This is where a key turning point in the Revolutionary War took place. The win for the rebels here boosted morale and led helped lead them to victory!


Right in front of the steps to the Monument was this map of The Freedom Trail.



At the base of the Monument there is the famous order from William Prescott during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Which reads:

Here we are at the top of 294 steps in the Bunker Hill Monument. It's not that bad of a climb, but when you have been walking all day long and you're weighing an extra 10-15 pounds because you're soaking wet from head to toe, it can be quite the challenge!
The trail actually ended at the USS Constitution, better known as "Old Ironsides", but we found out that during the winter season they don't give tours of the ship Sunday-Tuesday! We were able to get a small glance at it, but no pictures because it was too dark and not close enough.

Although we were all soaking wet we had an amazing time! It wasn't cold at all and we loved the history that Boston and The Freedom Trail had for our viewing pleasure. There was not better way to be thankful, so close to Thanksgiving, than to go around and honor the many people who were instruments in God's hands to make this country what it is today!

We're the Kings of New York!

That's right folks, we went to New York! After leaving the JFK Airport we went to Brooklyn and spent a month there one night! We arrived at the airport 8 minutes ahead of schedule. However, it was still just after 5am. Kira picked us up and we drove around trying to decide what were going to do first.

We drove through the ghetto parts of Queens and Brooklyn. So, what about Brooklyn? Who wants Brooklyn? C'mon, Spot Conlon's territory. Whats'a matta, you scared of Brooklyn? Hey, we ain't scared of Brooklyn! So we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan. And that's where we saw our first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. (Above is us driving on the bridge. Below is a picture of the bridge from the ferry going to Liberty Island)


We couldn't find a place to park. Then we thought: Try Central Park, it's guaranteed. We eventually found a garage to park at right by the south end of Central Park. Unfortunately we didn't get to go inside the park.

We were all pretty hungry so we went to a place called Fluffy's and had some breakfast. It was pretty good. After that we rode the subway. Of course we didn't get to miss having a crazy person on the train. It's this brain of mine, it's always makin' mistakes... it's got a mind of its own. He was talking to himself and seemed to be having some kind of argument with his cell phone. The phone didn't even seem to be working! He would slam it on the seat and shove it away and then pick it up again and start talking into it. Sometimes without flipping it open. That was entertaining. Oh, you know how everyone who says that the subway platform smells like pee...well it's true! The first one we were at wasn't that bad, but all the other platforms were terrible! I smell money. You smell foul.



We rode the subway to Ground Zero where the World Trade Center was. There was only a hole where they were beginning to rebuild. We were disappointed because we thought there was going to be a memorial or something. Then we walked over to the financial district and checked out all the amazing skyscrapers and buildings. We walked past the Trinity Church shown in National Treasure. We saw the Bull on Hitch. Then we found Battery Park.
This was the construction site of the memorial being built for the Twin Towers and Ground Zero.

Here is Kira and Robert posing with the Bull in the financial distric of NYC.

At around 10 a.m. we went bought our tickets and were on our way to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. (Just before we got onto the ferry, Robert had to get rid of his pocketknives because they would not let him go if he had them. So he had to stash them somewhere and hope they would be there when we got back.)

This is a picture from Battery Park, Lady Liberty is in the far background.

We walked around Lady Liberty taking pictures and admiring the view of New York from a distance. We were going to into the base of the statue, but we didn't think we had enough time so we gave our tickets to two frenchies who weren't going to be able to go up because they had the wrong kind of tickets. There's our good deed of the week!
This is a veiw of NYC from Liberty Island.

Here are pictures to prove that we were there. After that we put an egg in our shoe and beat it to Ellis Island.

That place was amazing even though we only stayed for about 25 minutes. We saw so much, but want to see more! We learned about how thousands upon thousands of immigrants had passed through there and what not. Extry, extry. Read all about it. Ellis Island in flames.
(This is one of our favorite photos. As we walked into the museum we had an overwhelming feeling of pride for our country and a small glimpse of what so many immigrants must of seen and felt as they came to America with a new hope! Those flags hanging said it all. God bless America!)
After Ellis we went back to Manhattan (Robert got his pocket knives back) and got hotdogs from a vendor, a must do in New York City.


We then took the subway back to Grand Central Station. Then we started walking and looking for the theatre where the Broadway musical The Lion King was playing because it was just after 1pm and we thought we needed to be seated really early; the show started at 3pm. In our search for the theatre we had to go through Times Square. The theatre wasn't even a block away. There was a really good view of the square from inside the theatre. There was about an hour of time wasted as we waited for the show to start.


We finally got in to watch the show. Although it was ridiculously hot and lack of sleep was kicking in, the show was simply spectacular! There was so much culture and talent put into this show. The art and technology was amazing for a stage type show. Words don't really do it justice! Robert fell asleep the most. It definitely wasn't from boredom or a crappy show. It was from too much heat and very little sleep. How'd ya sleep, (Robert)? On me back, Mush.

It was just before 6pm when we finished the show. We went to the biggest Toys R US store we'd ever seen. Don't believe it? Well there's a freakin' ferris wheel in it!



We were now really hungry and wanted to get out of NYC before it got too late and the freaks came out! Look at this! Baby born with two heads!


Just give me half a cup. Somethin' to wake me up. So to Times Square McDonalds to grab a bite to eat.

After dinner we had long walk back to the car. Deah me, what is dat unpleasant aroma? I fear da sewer may have backed up durin' da night. The streets were starting to wreak of fecal matter so the sooner we could get to the car, the better.

We got the car and started the difficult scramble of getting out of there It was sweet to see the city with all the lights and signs lit up. We had to take a different route to get out of Manhattan because we didn't want to drive through the way we came after dark. So with our great lack of experience in big cities, let alone NYC we slowly and cautiously navigated our way through the city with a dinky $4 gas station map. It is a good thing we had Lois to navigate.

For you Newsies fans: Count how many quotes from the movie are in this blog and you may just win a prize!

This blog was brought to you by the collective minds and personalities of Robert and Lois Draper

Robert needs Help with a school Projet-This new link should work

Hello everybody! I need some help with a project I have going in one of my classes. The following is a link to a little commercial that myself and the group I am working with came up with. We are trying to get as many hits as we can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYXD7XYvqbc

Go and watch it. Feel free to leave comments. Tell as many friends and family as you can to check it out! Thanks for the help! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!


If that link doesn't work this other one should. It is the same video. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/bitteralliance

The countdown.

Well, I am so excited because I only have 3 more days to work before vacation. I took Thursday off for Robert's birthday and then on Friday we are leaving for our Thanksgiving vacation. We are going to have so much fun! We are spending a few days in Utah with friends and family then flying out of Salt Lake City to JFK airport. My sister, Kira is picking us up there and we are going to spend the day in New York City site seeing. My other sister Amy is coming from Texas the day before Thanksgiving too! We are both so happy to be escaping from what has become the routine of our lives for the last 2 months or so. We will hopefully have lots to post on our blog during/after our trip.

Albertsons is wonderful!

So, today Robert and I went to Albertsons to get some of their amazing deals. Like 5 lbs of flour for $1.25 and cake mixes for $.50 and many other amazing sales. While I was there I remembered that I had not yet checked at there for jars. Sure enough, they had plenty of jars and I bought 3 boxes of them. I am hoping that is will be enough to finish the box and a half of apples that I still have. This was an answer to my prayers because I did not want these apples to go bad. Thank you Albertsons for restocking your shelves in the middle of canning season.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

So, last night it began to snow and then continued to snow through out the night. I work up this morning and there was a wonderful white blanket across everything. Plus, Robert and I went shopping the other day to get some items for our car and there was Christmas music playing in most of the stores. I am so excited! Robert and I are hoping to go home to my parents house for Christmas and see all the family that is coming home, but we will see. I think I am going to go watch Polar Express now.

Does anyone in Rexburg have empty canning jars that I can buy from them or know where I can get them. I have canned about 15 jars of applesauce and have only used about 1/4 of the apples I have. ALL of the stores including DI are out of jars. Please help! Or, if anyone is going to IF and could pick me up some I will give you cash for doing so. OR, if anyone wants some apples to can I will give them to you. The apples are a little mushy and so not really good to eat plain.

Week of Halloween festivities.

Well, this week was not to exciting, but we at least enjoyed and felt the spirit of Halloween. On Monday evening we had our friends Molly and Kevin over to carve pumpkins and watch It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. We had fun. Then on Thursday my work had their Halloween celebration and I dressed up as a Disney Land tourist. This was nothing special, but it made it feel like I was part Halloween. Then on Friday we did not do much. I have to work from 9 am till 9 pm. When I got home from work we didn't have enough time to dress up or anything and this was a little depressing. However, we were able to make it over to some friends house for about 30 minutes of a party. Then we came home and had some other friends over, ate pizza and told a few scary stories.

Robert's Lois' Molly's Kevin's in that order.

This is my pumpkin lit up. The picture of Robert's did not turn out well enought to post. His was double sided and looked dang cool! A close up of his is below. The other side of it he did not carve, but just thinned the walls of it and it looked like Scarecrow from Batman Begins.

Hopefully this will be my last Halloween where I will have to work all day and our last Halloween with such limited resources. This is Robert's favorite holiday and we never get to do anything big or special. It was sad to see his disappointment of not dressing up and enjoying the day more. I am pretty sure that he just did homework ALL day! Poor guy, we will make up for it next time.