Halloween Week

Jason got back from Raleigh last Saturday night after his defense. He spent the last week making some final revisions and he is now all done except for graduation in December!  Sunday we carved our pumpkins. Jason chose a wolf howling at the moon and I did bats. We cooked the pumpkin seeds, yum!

Jason said his only motivation
 was the cooked seeds...
but look how much fun he is having haha.

Final product. Mines on the right, Jason's on the left.

Thursday we went to the Ford dealer to see about buying a new truck for Jason. His old vehicle was having some issues that weren't worth fixing. He brought home his F-150 on Friday. He is very happy with his choice. We took it out today and it drives very well :-)




We were in the parking lot of EBR-I. There was
lots of space so a good place for pictures.



back seat

 

It has all the fancy sync technology :-)

Today we drove out to craters of the moon national park. It is the site of an extinct volcano so it is a huge lava field. It was really neat. On the way out I got to see where Jason works as well as EBR-I which is the site of the worlds first nuclear power plant. He showed me some reactors that were originally built for airplanes. They were tested but never used. We also drove through Arco which was the first town to be lit by nuclear power. I am learning more and more each day about nuclear stuff and what Jason actually does. Some day I will understand haha.

Airplane reactors

This is my attempt at a picture of where Jason
works. Those little white things are the buildings at MFC
where he works.

We then made it to Craters of the Moon, which is about 90 miles east of Idaho Falls.  We walked around for about 3 hours looking at all the different formations from the lava. 

Neat folded rocks.

We first walked around a short loop
that was full of lava formations.

Then we climbed inferno cone. It was
considered a vent from the larger volcano.

We made it to the top and there was one lonely tree.
Except it wasn't very hot today. It was about 45 and
very windy. Burrr

Jason making his way up inferno cone

Then we hiked the crater trail. This was one
of the larger craters.

This was the path we hiked around the craters.



Then we saw what they called spatter cone
and snow cone. There is always snow
at the bottom of "snow cone" it was a big
hole filled with snow.

This was at the top of inferno cone.
We did well with the self timer!

Jason found and interesting rock formation.

Next to spatter cone.

Then it was time for the "wild cave"
This was a little frightening for me, but
I made it into two of them.

This one was called Indian Tunnel. It had
the most light out of all of them. It has a couple of sky
lights and collapses that made it bareable hehe.

Jason crawled into this little hole for fun!

Me exiting Indian Tunnel .
I was happy to be out!

All we had were flashlights for light.
And of course Jason's awesome head light.

This was the second one. Beauty Cave.
It was so dark. Jason had to drag me in.

This is a picture of the exit of Beauty Cave.
It was so cold under there you can see our
breaths in the picture.

Just a picture of the lava rock around the caves.

We also purchased a National Parks pass today so anyone who wants to come exploring feel free!! We miss everyone and can't wait for some visitors. Heather comes in 3 weeks for Thanksgiving :-)

Fall Days

The past two weeks have seemed to go by slow and fast all at the same time. We didn't do anything too exciting last weekend. We did visit the Idaho Museum. Right now they have an exhibit about Leonardo Da'Vinci. It was very interesting with all the inventions and ideas he had. We also went to sears to try and add things to our registry but the scanner was broken...a sin really haha.

Jason has spent tons of time in front of his computer finishing up his presentation. He has worked so hard. He left yesterday to head to Raleigh for the big day. He will defend tomorrow, Friday. Yay Dr. Harp!
It is starting to get colder. They predict maybe some snow next week, nothing big but some flurries. Still cold enough to see kids in their heavy coats with their costumes stuffed underneath. I can't wait I miss the snow! The leaves are starting to change colors, but I don't think I will ever see anything more pretty than fall in NY.

School has been going well. Of course all the kids are so excited about Halloween! I get a count down everyday so I won't forget. It is interesting to work with such a large range of ages. The little kids are crazy about anything exciting and the older kids are still excited but try to act all cool about it. Two second graders had an argument the other day because "they can't both be a zombie!" I haven't figured out what I should dress up like, which means I will probably be that boring, nonspirited teacher with no costume hehe. Maybe a witch hat... We are carving our pumpkins on sunday so I will try to put up some pictures of what I am sure will be quite the masterpieces. :-)

Salt Lake City

Hopefully everyone got their save the dates this past week. I was glad to hear from some that they made it alright :-) We were lucky this weekend because we both had Friday off. We decided to go to Salt Lake City to get our wedding bands and order tuxes. A little early but we wanted to take advantage of our long weekend to get some things checked off the wedding list. Salt Lake is about 3 1/2 hours from Idaho Falls. It is the closest big city. I wouldn't say we did the whole tourist thing but we saw a little bit of the city while out and about.
Friday night we picked out our rings and were lucky that they were able to size them and clean them for us in 24 hours. 

Jason's ring

Melissa's rings

On Saturday we ordered tuxes from Men's Warehouse. I think they are going to look great!! We then took some time to visit the Morman Temple Square.  



This is a picture I took while driving in Salt Lake 



Morman Temple

  



  

 

There is a show on TLC called the Little

Chocolatiers and we went to their little shop in Salt Lake.

It was very small and right on the corner in the

 middle of a neighborhood. We missed meeting

them because they were at a convention this weekend. :-(

The chocolate is yummy though!!

 


A couple things we noticed while in Salt Lake:
Peppers is a yummy pita place to eat!
People drive way too fast on all roads. 20 over the speed limit at least.
Has an insane movieplex where you have reserved seats for each movie.

This was the view from out hotel window.

We bought our plane tickets for x-mas in NY and our wedding today. I also ordered the table overlays. Things are starting to come together. We don't have too many more things to take care of before the big day!

P.S. The kitties say Hello!!



Lolly found her favorite chair again after
the stay with her grandparents in NY.
She is mad because I woke her. hehe.




Snickers loves to help me on the computer.
In fact he is sitting here with me now!



This past week seemed pretty busy. We joined a gym and have been spending time working out and trying to get fit for the wedding :-) Jason has been working hard on his dissertation. He is almost certain he will be flying back to Raleigh later this month and then he will be done!!! Despite our hopes we did not get the save the dates mailed out last week, but they will be in the mail tomorrow. We are getting more and more excited about the wedding; although I'm not sure Jason likes playing the part of bridesmaid and helping me do all the addressing and ordering things, but he has been a huge help :-) This weekend we just kind of relaxed. Saturday we went to the Idaho Falls Oktoberfest. They had live music, german sausage, and beer...the usual for such an event. It was fun and it was nice to be outside for a couple hours. It has been pretty warm here this past week. In the upper 80s every day. It's supposed to cool down a bit this next week, so more average temperatures. Today we went grocery shopping and Jason bought a grill so now we can cookout!! We also spent the afternoon at the greenbelt by the falls reading. Next weekend we are going to Salt Lake City to order our wedding bands and look at some tuxedos. I will let you know how that goes :-)


Jason Standing near the race track. The Oktoberfest
was at Sandy Downs the horse track in Idaho Falls.



The german brats we ate. YUM!

Picture of the back of the grand stands.

Jason putting together the little grill for our patio.

These are the falls in Idaho Falls. There is a path that goes all the way around that we walk. these are like 5 minutes from out apartment.

The morman temple that is right next to the river.

At Oktoberfest listening to some live music. So sunny again :-)

More exploring

Since we do live in Idaho, we decided that this weekend we would travel to the Idaho Potato Museum to learn some things about the good old Idaho Potato. We went down to Blackfoot, which is about 25 miles south of Idaho Falls.  Below are some pictures of the outside of the museum. The sun was so bright in the one of Jason. We are both convinced that the sun is much brighter here than it ever was in North Carolina. I think I am going to need some sunglasses :-p

A sign inside the museum



That's one large spud



See my eyes were shut it was so bright haha

This is the inside of a potato shed. They need to be sure to keep airflow at a minimum of 10 cubic feet per minute per ton. Airflow is designed to maintain the potatoes in a constant and uniform temperature throughout the pile.



Potatoes grow in the southern part of Idaho. Idaho's short summers provide hot days and cool nights best for growing potatoes. The wind-blown soils of the Snake Rive Plain are especially suited for potatoes, being light, well drained and rich in plant nutrients. Idaho receives less than 9 inches of rainfall yearly, allowing farmers to irrigate with the precision needed to grow fine potatoes.



The famous Idaho Potato

The museum also had a display of all the equipment used to harvest potatoes and plant them. There was also a potato song called "When There's Tears in the Eyes of a Potato." Jason proceeded to sing some of it out loud. I was go glad there were only two other people in the entire place haha!
After the Museum we went to the Idaho Falls Public Library. (which we have been to before) But interesting note: There is a statue of Billy, Old Dan, and Little Ann from Where the Red Fern Grows out in the front because Wilson Rawls, the author, is from Idaho Falls.

There was also a CommUNITY Festival yesterday that we decided to check out. It was in the same park as the Zoo is in and the Zoo was free! So we got to walk around and see some animals and listened to some live jazz music and enjoyed the beautiful day. However the tigers and snow leapord were hiding :-(
It is supposed to be in the high 70s and 80s all week but it still gets down in the low 40s at night. 



The Festival



Pelicans



Big bears! They were very active!

I don't think I have ever seen a tortise this big.



The monkys were fun too!












The last thing we did yesterday was register for our wedding. If you have never walked around a store with one of those scan guns....It is definately as fun as it looks!!! haha. Jason was in charge of the scanner and we managed to agree on everything we scanned. He didn't even find a display of beer to scan like on that commercial. (although he said he was going to look hehe)
We will be sending out Save the dates this coming week with our website on it. It has information on our registry and other info. about our wedding.

Today we are just doing some work and watching football :-)