Pumpkin Carving Party

Well, we had our annual pumpkin carving night last night. It was a lot of fun! I'm glad that we can make this a tradition in our family. Greg, as usual is a professional at making his pumpkin look amazing. Last year, his Voldemort pumpkin blew my dumb happy smiling face (which I even messed up on its tooth) out of the water! This year, I did a little bit better: I carved a zombie coming out of a coffin. Greg carved the face of Jack Skellington. It was a lot of fun!

 

 

Look at that cute face...

Of course, we had baked pumpkin seeds.

Now here's my masterpiece. Better than last year, that's for sure!

And here's Greg's. He always does a great job.

We had a great time together doing this.

 

We can't wait for next year's pumpkin carving party! 

Happy Halloween!

Are YOU Ready For Halloween?

Well, as normal, Greg and I have been up to a lot lately! Mostly just homework, work, school, more homework, etc. Fun, huh? I have some very strong feelings about school lately... Anyways, even though we've had some tough weeks lately, it's been great. We had a chance to paint one of our walls an accent color, which looks pretty nice. We just dedicated one Saturday afternoon to paint. 

We got to decorate our house with Halloween decorations, and although we didn't have very much, we made do with what we had: some spiderwebs, a bowl full of candy (probably Greg's favorite part), a witch welcome sign on our door, some orange "DO NOT ENTER" caution tape, a couple of purple lightbulbs (oooo creepy), and a little pumpkin decoration. Let me just say, spiderwebs are everywhere in our living room. It almost looks just plain dirty. But hey, it's Halloween and that's just the way it is. 

Here are a couple of pictures of us painting our wall.

This picture is hideous of me, but if you look closely, there is a very thick piece of dried paint that ripped off while we were painting. Several weeks ago, Chris and Jocelyn came to reclaim their furniture that we had been storing for them all summer while they were in Florida. There was a bookshelf that was very top heavy that we ended up taping at the top to the wall. Well, when we were moving the furniture, Chris pulled the bookshelf really hard (he had no idea that it was taped, so it wasn't really his fault), and it ripped a bunch of layers of paint of with it. You could literally see the concrete (our apartment does not have insulation or dry wall, unfortunately). Greg tried to patch it with some putty, but apparently it wasn't a good enough job, and while we were painting, the roller pulled off a big chunk, as you can see in the picture.

We've had some nice, relaxing weekends. We made homemade cinnamon rolls a couple weeks ago, which were delicious as always!

A couple of weeks ago, we got to go over to Janet and Martha's house (Janet wasn't there, unfortunately). Martha had had knee surgery, and Greg, Karina, Savannah, Greg, and I went over there and made dinner and dessert for her and her friend. Karina made lasagna. I made brownies and we had ice cream. It was really nice being over there visiting. They always show so much hospitality and are very welcoming. We sure do love them.

Of course, the Cutie was there too. Isn't she just a doll?

Greg decided to follow his FAVORITE person in the world (NOT EVEN CLOSE TO THE TRUTH FYI) and be Obama for Halloween.

Here starts the pictures of our house with Halloween decorations.

Notice the excess spider webs...

And the big bowl of candy...

I know this is probably super weird, but we had extra caution tape, so we decided to put this on our bathroom door. You can probably guess why... And it's not because of me...

Since we are still suffering a little bit financially from our car fiasco, we have been really skimping it on food. We haven't eaten very well; our diet consists of noodles, noodles, and more noodles (a slight exaggeration). Last Friday, we just couldn't handle it anymore. We decided to go ALL OUT and make french dip for ourselves. It was so incredibly good. Such a nice change from what we have been eating. Oh, and we got some watermelon too :)

Life's been good. We are trying to be happy now and not look too far ahead and long for the future. Of course, we are trying to plan our lives for the next 5 years, but we are trying to keep a good attitude through all the homework, work, school, and craziness that goes on. It's tough, but hey, who ever said life was easy?

Some Thoughts on the Gospel

I've really enjoyed my Doctrine and Covenants class. I have learned so much from my amazing professor, Dr. Brooks (I've mentioned him before; he was the professor I took for my Marriage class last semester). Today we were talking about D&C 21. It is right about the time that the church was organized (April 1830), and this section talks about the prophet and how we should always follow him. In this context, it specifically talks about how Joseph Smith will be the prophet, but we can apply it to our day as well with President Monson. It says that we should follow the prophet because God speaks through him. It is as if God were speaking to us directly.

My teacher made an interesting point with this doctrine. He said that often times, members of the Church are so concerned and waste too much time trying to decide if what the prophet said was a commandment or if it was just counsel. Sometimes, the members make excuses for why they won't follow the prophet's voice because they say he was just "counseling" us, and that it wasn't a "commandment." This is a sign of not understanding the doctrine of the Lord in D&C 21.

If we truly understand what the Lord has said, we will do EVERYTHING the prophet asks us to do because we know what he says comes from God Himself! I remember in my New Testament class last semester, my teacher explained that there are commandments, and then there are rules, or "counsels" that the prophets give us that aren't necessarily commandments that the doctrine of the scriptures mention. I sort of struggled with this. I guess I didn't really understand what my teacher was trying to say. But now, with this further clarity from Brother Brooks, I understand better the fact that it doesn't matter if it's commandment or counsel, we should ALWAYS follow the prophet.

My teacher explained his point by using a hypothetical instance. He said that if Christ Himself came into the classroom and went up to Brother Brooks and asked him to sit down because He wanted to speak to the class Himself, no one would even dare to raise their hand and ask, "Is that a commandment or is that just counsel for Brother Brooks to sit down?" We would just all obey and understand that Christ knows best! Likewise, we should just obey the prophet because God speaks through him. He would never tell us to do something like only have one pair of earrings, or dress modestly, or serve a mission (all counsels from the prophet) unless Christ wanted him to.

I've just been thinking a lot about the prophet and Christ, and I truly know that if we just obey what the prophet says, we are promised the blessings that Doctrine and Covenants 21 promises: the gates of hell will not prevail against us, Christ will disperse the powers of darkness, and the heavens will shake in our behalf.

Ruth Lake Trip

So I am trying to surprise Sam by writing this blog myself.  Myself being Greg.  We just went on a fun trip to Ruth lake, just past Mirror Lake in the Uinta's, with Chris and Jocelyn.  We were a little skeptical at first because we were exhausted from a hard second week of school, and our work schedules staying the same all the while.  We drove out at about 5 on Friday evening and got there at about 7.  We started hiking and realized that the darker it got, the harder it was going to be to catch our dinner.  Once we got there we got straight to fishing.  It was getting darker, and Sam and I fished together.  We casted where we would see jumps on the lake.  It was a small lake so there was not a lot of room to explore, but it was still very pretty.  I took some casts but did not have any luck.  Sam took over and finally after seeing a fish jump fifteen feet in front of us, she reeled one in!  It was a pretty good sized Brooke trout, especially for being that high in the mountains.  After catching it, she pretty much handed it off to me and kept casting.  I told her I wanted to catch one, and so I got the rod, and she got to enjoy holding her fish.  Im sure she loved that. I could not get one, but I was very happy that Sam got one.  She could not have been happier either, I think mainly because I didn't get one and she did.
Once it got dark, it was freezing and we had to run around to get wood for a fire.  We started one up and started cooking our food.  We also started putting up our tents, but wait, where was Chris and Jocelyn's?  I don't know but it was not there with them!  They were totally prepared with food, sleepping bags, and fishing stuff, all except for the tent.  Chris went across the lake to see if a loud Scout group had an extra one(we, as you probably do, are thinking at this point it is a lost cause).  Sure enough, he and a few other scouts came over presenting Chris's less than jovial wife at this point with a tent.  He told us later that it seemed to be a trade for one roll of Smarties.  Candy was, according to one of the Scouts, "legal tender" in their troop.  Lucky for Chris he agreed and always carried a spare roll of Smarties for emergencies.  We had hot dogs and cooked our fish in tin foil.  The fish was very tasty, probably because Jocelyn brought spices and I made sure every square millimeter of that fish was covered.  We cooked marshmallows and had a nice discussion about the stars and the universe and all things space (Heavy stuff).  After a lot of stories and joking around, we were ready to go to sleep and stop trying to fighting the cold.  It was quite cold.  Supposedly it got down to about 37 degrees, and we all agreed that it was a pretty fair estimate.
We woke up to Chris stoking a crackling of a fire and the sun causing the greenhouse effect in our tents.  As we were eating breakfast some birds found interest in the crackers I was eating and so i held one out and a "castro" bird came right up, perched on my finger for a second and took the cracker.  We had a good time trying to get the birds to do the same thing to get it on camera.  After eating breakfast and packing up we gave the Boy Scouts their tent back and headed back.  On the way back we tried our luck in a stream, where we saw lots of fish, but caught few.  The trip will be remembered, sadly for Chris, as the "how could you forget that" trip.  

Us in front of the lake

Us fishing before it got dark

Hiking back out

We Sold The Car! And Other Things We've Been Up To...

Well, it's official. As of last night, we sold our 2000 Saab 9-3. You know, the car that has caused us problems since our fiasco in Vegas? Yes, that car. We have been trying to sell it for about 3 weeks now, and it finally sold! It was kind of a funny situation... We had a couple of people who were really interested in it, and then a couple of nights ago, a lady who lives in Logan texted Greg and told him she wanted to come down and buy our car the next day. I thought it was a little weird because she hadn't even tested the car out yet, but she and her husband came down last night and bought our car. We are seriously SO excited. The nice thing is, we sold it without the A/C working, which we thought was not going to happen for a reasonable price. But it did!

So it's out with the old...

...and in with the new.

We bought our new car, a 1999 Mazda Protege, about 2 weeks ago. Coincidentally, it worked out that while we were celebrating our first anniversary of being married (we stayed at a hotel in Sandy, Utah), we got to check out this car. We really liked it, so we ended up buying it for a reasonable price. Greg is a little sad to not have the Saab anymore (it had a turbo in it and just had a lot more power than our new car), but it was time for a change. This car has a lot less miles on it than our Saab, so we are hoping it works out.

We had a really nice anniversary in Sandy. We stayed at a hotel call the Residence Inn for 2 nights, went out to eat at a pizza place, rented a couple of movies, and went swimming. It was just nice to get away from the stresses of life for a couple of nights before school started.

Just wanted to post this picture of how awesome our hotel room was. We didn't even pay very much for it, but it came with a kitchen and everything. We were spoiled.

Last week, Chris and Jocelyn were moving into their new apartment on the border of Provo and Orem. It's so nice to have them back from Florida. We've been hanging out with them and it's been great. As they were moving in, they needed us to watch their cat, Oliver, for a couple of days. We agreed to babysit little Ollie.

He just couldn't get enough of my shoes. He kept rubbing his body all over the rubber of my tennis shoes. One of the nights he was here, there was a crazy thunderstorm, something I've never really been in before. Every ten seconds or so, lightning would strike, with thunder immediately following. It felt and sounded like it was right over our house. In fact, the lightning even hit one of the transformers at Chris and Jocelyn's apartment complex. It was insane, but kind of awesome at the same time. Ollie was FREAKING out. I tried to calm him down and wanted him to know it was all ok, and as I put my hand out toward him, he swatted me with his little claws (left some tiny little marks), and just stood in the corner. The poor little guy was just scared out of his wits. I guess that's what I get for trying to pet a freaked out animal.

The other night, we got together with a couple from our ward, Rebecca and A.J. Echols. I have gotten to know Rebecca through the ward a little bit, but it was so nice to have them both come over and chat and get to know each other even better. I think we really hit it off. Rebecca had this really fun idea to get two boxes of ice cream, take the cardboard off, and carve something into the ice cream. The ice cream started melting and it was kind of hard to shape what you wanted into it, but it was a ton of fun. Greg and I carved a bowl with ice cream in it (made out of real ice cream mind you) and A.J. and Rebecca carved a cat. It was really cute.

We really had a good time with them and can't wait to do more fun things with them (and their baby who is due in October- how exciting!)

For Labor Day, Greg and I went up to Park City to spend time with the family. We spent the night Sunday night and then got up in the morning and went on a hike to Stewart Falls (it's kind of near Sundance and Aspen Grove). It was beautiful, and the leaves are changing, so it was very colorful. The waterfall itself was very cool, but the water was freezing! Here are some pictures of our adventure.

This is how Park City is starting to look. As Fall progresses, it gets more vivid.

My cutie up at the waterfall

More cuties up at the waterfall

There were a ton of people there. It was just crazy.

Lance brought Sammy up to the higher waterfall. 

Overall, life has been going great here in the life of the Livingston's. We are just moving along with school and finances, even though both have been struggles for us lately. We are relying on the Lord because He is the one who will help us get through our difficult times. We are very blessed in our lives, and we are looking forward to more adventures.

Car Problems, Vegas, and More

Well, I'd say that Greg and I had quite an interesting weekend. To say the least. We had spent a wonderful week in California with my family and also in Yosemite. It was such a fun vacation! Then, last Saturday, we decided to drive home to Utah. Our air conditioning wasn't really working for some odd reason, but we decided to deal with it when we got home. As we drove through Las Vegas, we figured we should just keep on driving until St. George and then fill up on gas (we hate stopping in Vegas; it's just too busy). A few miles out of the city, near the speedway, the car felt like a gust of wind had picked it up, and then a few seconds later, we heard something break in the engine, and our car started freaking out. We pulled over to check it out, and it smelled like burned rubber and it was smoking a bit. Needless to say, we were in a pickle. The car definitely was not going to work unless we repaired it. Unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you look at it, it was Saturday. Unfortunately because not a lot of people were open. Fortunately because at least SOME people were open, but very few. We called around to try to figure out where we could go to that would charge the least amount. We found a guy that would tow us for free and then fix our car. When we got to his shop, he couldn't find all of the parts that needed to be fixed, but was going to continue trying to search for them so we could be on the road again that night. Basically, what had happened was that the A/C Compressor seized (broke/stopped working) which caused the serpentine belt that spins it to not be able to work. This cause the serpentine belt to shred to pieces and also break the idler and tensioner. It was pretty bad.

Luckily while the car was being fixed, we had a couple of life-savers: Aunt Janna and her husband, Don! Don picked us up and we went back to their house to hang out. They fed us, and we got to spend some quality time with them. We were sooooo blessed to have them. We couldn't thank them enough. Later that same day, at around 9 PM, the mechanic called us and our car was done, or so he said. We got there, turned on the car, and realized there was an oil leak, and a part needed to be replaced (the seal) but wouldn't be available until the next day (Sunday) or Monday. We went back to Janna and Don's to spend the night and waited for the call the next morning to see if the mechanic had found the part.

Sunday morning, we woke up, Janna made us a really nice breakfast, and then the mechanic called us. Bad news: the part was available but not until Monday morning. We had to stay another night in Vegas. This wasn't so bad because we had Janna and Don, bless their hearts. We went out to a little ghost town called Bonnie Springs. Janna used to work there, and it was a cute and fun little town, complete with a petting zoo and everything! It was very hot, about 100 degrees, but honestly, it was so great to be with our family and get our minds off of the car fiasco (Greg was having a really hard time with it all, just very stressed). The rest of the day, we pretty much lounged around at the house and watched some old TV shows and had dinner. It was really nice.

Monday morning, we went to Mimi's Cafe with Janna (so good!) and then headed over to the auto shop. He had our car fixed by around 11 AM. We were on the road after that! Everything seemed great, until about 2 hours outside of Vegas, toward St. George. The A/C stopped working. It just died. We were so upset, so we called our mechanic back in Vegas and he told us he thought it was a problem with the tubing (why he didn't fix it, I don't know). We decided to turn the A/C off for the rest of the drive (it was SUPER hot) and just get home.

Yesterday (the day after we got home) we took the car to an A/C specialist. He said he thinks our other mechanic didn't flush out the system before he installed the other parts and now there were metal pieces clogging one of the valves. Great. Just our luck. If that isn't the problem and the A/C guy finds that the metal is all throughout the system, we have to replace the ENTIRE A/C system. Which is SUPER expensive.

Money is just draining from our pockets. This is honestly one of the hardest times financially that Greg and I have had ever. But I know we will get through it, with the help of our family, our friends, and our God.

The Damages:

-Replaced A/C Compressor
-Replaced Idler
-Replaced Tensioner
-Replaced Serpentine Belt
-Potentially need to replace valve
-Potentially need to replace entire A/C system

Total: $1200 (if we replace the valve, another $350)

The Blessings:

-We decided to stop in St. George, not Vegas. Greg believes that if we had stopped in Vegas, the car would have cooled down, and then when we started to go again, it would've taken longer for the problems to happen, and by that point, we would've been way out in the desert, not 9 miles away from the city.
-We didn't get in a car accident. We don't have to pay for more severe damages. We don't have to pay for hospital bills.
-We have credit cards. We just couldn't do this without credit cards. We normally don't like to just use them freely, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
-We didn't have to pay for a tow truck.
-Aunt Janna and Don live in Las Vegas. They are our heroes. We are so appreciative of them and we love them so much for taking us in!
-Because we have family in Vegas, we didn't have to pay for a hotel for 2 nights.
-We got to spend some quality time with Aunt Janna and Don all weekend.
-Our mechanic really didn't charge us as much as he could have for the repairs. I think he had mercy on us college kids.

Here are some pictures of us in Las Vegas, up in the mountains a little bit at Bonnie Springs:

This is right before the gates to the ghost town.

The little ghost town, Bonnie Springs. 

Cute little fawn.

A couple of ostriches.

This little pig is called Bubbles. It loved being in that water, especially because it was so hot outside!

Greg and a goat.

Little Donkey. 

Some birds. 

Overall, it was a very tough and stressful situation, and it's not over yet. But we were very lucky and we found good even in the worst of situations. Right now, we are trying to sell our car without A/C, and then buy a car that is cheaper to replace. Our car is a Saab, so it's parts are Swedish and expensive to repair or replace. We are just too poor to have another accident like this.