Jon and DDR

My family decided to do a fitness plan where everyone set health goals to keep until Thanksgiving. Well, if you know the Gourleys...you know we can justify ourselves out of any rule! (Like, my goal to only drink caffeine 4 times a month does not include drinking caffeine for "medicinal" purposes.) But, Jon is sticking to the rules and trying to get all of his 3 hrs of workout time in for the week. I was talking on the phone with a friend and heard some stomping in the front room. I went out to see Jon doing his daily workout-Dance Dance Revolution! Simultaneously, there was a smell coming from teh kitchen. He made cookies! Love the health plan...DDR for exercise while cookies bake in the oven.

Harvest Time

This past summer we finished the back yard...well not entirely finsihed because we still need a fence and some rock, but finished enough to lay out on the grass and enjoy the rock wall with landscape lights Jon put in (how he knows how to do all this stuff is amazing to me.) We also built a garden on the side of our house. I was especially excited about this because I love home grown vegetables. We put the vegetables plants in a little late and I had at transplant from a friend's garden. She gave me 2 squash plants and by the time I got them home and planted in our garden they were nearly dead. We did some intensive treatment on the plants-lots of water and fertilizer. We were able to bring one plant back, but sadly the other died. After all of our TLC on the squash plant...this is what we harvested. Yes, that is ALL of it. Every last thing we picked from the plant is shown in the picture. Better luck next year...I hope! (Of course, it couldn't get much work)

The Quarterly Update

I really didn't mean to make this blog a quarterly update, but it seems that is how it is turning out. Last week I celebrated my 30th birthday (and by week I literally mean I celebrated the entire week). I feel so lucky and blessed to have great family and friends! I got to celebrate with family, friends from PGHS, friends from Sorority House, friends from work, and Jon...which meant celebrating all week! It was my best birthday ever. Jon surprised me with an overnight stay at Westgate in Park City-my favorite "get away" place. I haven't been taking my camera with me much lately-something I'm going to have to work on for the future. So, while I don't have any pictures from my birthday week, I included a picture from my other favorite get away place in Zambia.

We've had an exciting first year of marriage!! Some of the highlights include...

• Moving to a new house in Lehi, Utah. The house had no yard and an unfinished basement, so we've been busy with construction and landscaping! (Two things I had never done before getting married. I even mowed the lawn for the first time EVER this year!)

• A winter with LOTS of snow. Jon taught me how to ski and we enjoyed spending a couple of weekends with family and friends up at the Robinson Family cabin at Brighton.

• We bought a horse named Cowboy! Jon called me after a few weeks of being married and asked what I thought about buying a horse. I responded with silence...and understandably so! It was actually an investment and we only saw the horse once...at least we got a picture with him :)

• A humanitarian trip to Zambia with Mothers Without Borders followed by a safari in South Luangwa.

• The birth of 2 nephews and 1 neice. I LOVE being an aunt! I think it is the best thing ever! When we got married, I become an insta-aunt x9. I told Jon that is one of the best gifts he gave me after we got married...being an aunt.

• I ran the Moab Half Marathon with 2 good friends this year. We endured the winter training and enjoyed a beautiful run in Moab. I was so thankful to have Jon at the finish line cheering us on. He was my motivation to finish! I imagined how embarrassed I would be if he waited all day at the finish line and never saw me! Plus, he was waiting with a Dr. Pepper in hand...an added bonus!

• We love our new neighborhood and ward. We have great neighbors and friends in this area. We both received callings shortly after moving in. Jon is the cub master for the area. I was serving in the nursery and just got called as the primary chorister-it is my dream calling!
• I got lucky enought to be invited to Los Angeles to see a good friend, Mary Banford, in the Broadway Musical "Wicked". She won a package deal on Deal or No Deal and got to be on stage for the preformance. It was an amazing experience and we had a lot of fun.

I'm on the blog bandwagon

We've been married for one year and decided it was time to join the bloggin' bandwagon! With a little encouragement and guidance from a friend, we have our first post. I use the term "we" very loosely...as Jon as left the blogging up to me.