Holiday Rewind

Wow! Forgive me for the lack of updating the blog. I'd say we had a pretty eventful holiday season. For Thanksgiving we went to my aunt and uncle's house in Farmington, Ut. It was so fun! We had the whole family from my mom's side together for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. We took a picture of all of us and stuffed ourselves with turkey and it was great. The highlight was my grandma teaching us how to make her secret recipe toffee. That in itself was an adventure. Let's just say I went through 4 pounds of butter trying to perfect it...David and I ate burnt toffee for weeks.

Christmas was a blast. We stayed in Boise because I had to work, but it felt like a vacation. We went to David's house almost every day over the break and stayed there over night some of the nights. The highlight was sleeping on the hide-a-bed and being awakened every morning by my cute nieces singing, dancing or jumping...on us.

Christmas Eve was wonderful. We acted out the Nativity, which is David's family tradition. I was a shepherd (kind of funny and awkward, but not nearly as awkward as when I played Joseph when I was 8). Then we sang all the Christmas hymns together. What a treat! I married into a family who sings!!! We went to bed and slept in the next morning. It was a Luker Family record...I think we slept in until 8! For Christmas morning with 8 anxious kids in the house, can you believe we didn't get up until after the sun? It was great. Everyone loved getting and giving presents. David's favorite was our new electric toothbrushes. His mom asked him, "If you could pick one thing for Christmas, what would you want?" Can you believe he asked for a toothbrush!? But, I give in, they are pretty darn awesome.

On New Years Eve we ate fondue and it was spectacular! Daniel went out and bought some special swiss cheese, we had marinated steak and chocolate and fruit. It was great! Well, that's it for the holiday update. I'll post some pictures and more details when I find the time. :)

The Bike...

As you may know, about a month ago some jerk stole David's bike right out of our backyard--in midday! Cut the lock and everything...while we were home! The nerve. Well, I am proud to report, that the same dummie that stole it later left it on the side of a major road to rot. The sherriff picked it up and called David to come get it. This time we bought an amazing lock! We were glad to get the bike back, but honestly, we were more sad that the mean bike stealer didn't get busted!

One Year Older and Wiser too...

Some friends and I threw David a surprise birthday party for his 25th birthday! It was a blast. David’s friend Reed took him out before and when he came back, our tiny house was crowded with two dozen people. It was fun, and David never even saw it coming. We had family and friends, and best of all good food! Here is David with his pile of presents, looking thrilled as always.

Baking in Boise

I bake incessantly out of boredom. It's great. I love bread. I think it’s the greatest thing next to, well…sliced bread. I could eat it all day! And, since I was given the most amazing appliance ever created by man (a kitchenaid) for my wedding, I make a lotta bread. I’m still getting good, so we’ll call these experiments, but I was still dang proud! I made homemade French bread, which David loved. I thought it was okay. But what’s way better than that, was that tonight David and I made our first ever attempt at “Lambert’s Rolls.” If you’ve ever been to Lambert’s and had their rolls, you know how amazing they are. If not, I feel bad for you, I really do. Because you’re missing out on quite possibly the best rolls known to man. So, I did a little research—223 calories per roll. But does that stop us from putting our arms in the air and catching the “throwed rolls” in this classic southern restaurant? No way! (Mine weren’t half as good as the real thing!)

Filthy Lukers!

So, Halloween rolled around, and it was time for the ward Halloween party. David's birthday is on Halloween, and I admit, I was having a little bit of trouble getting into the spirit of the holiday. Even though our yard was decked out with pumpkins and spiderwebs, we had no ideas for costumes! So...we did the only thing we knew how to do. We turned to the only cheap, easy and "fitting" costume we could think of--we were 'Filthy Lukers'. I wish I had better pictures, because our blacked out teeth, tacky accents and trashy demeanor was pretty good. This is a picture of yours truly, taken by me. Because really, how could this costume go completely undocumented?! You can only see my head, but other than the t-shirt that said, 'Filthy Lukers' and the jeans we loaded up with dirt in the church parking lot, our heads were the best part. If you look closely at the picture of David and his physics project, you'll notice left over "dirt" from our night of fun. When all else fails, come up with something that goes along with your last name! It's fun being a Luker...

Our House! In the Middle of Our Street!

Hello all! After about a month we are almost fully unpacked. We got a washer and dryer last night, but all the plugs in our little old house are too old to work with our dryer. So, for now, we have a catastrophically huge pile of laundry on the floor in our room! Until we get an electrician in, we're living day to day, washing a few things here and there and letting them air dry. :)

Here are a few pictures of our house--that we love!

This is our living room, which is not huge, but we like it. And, our brand new couch that is incredibly comfortable. (We had to get a new couch because David was allergic to the other one...a rather hilarious story, actually.)

Here's our "dining room". It's small, but we really like this little table that we got from Shopko. And, as you can see, I have attempted to decorate by buying new valences and adding a pumpkin spice candle to our table!

Here's a shot of our new bed. At first, I couldn't stand it...it hurt our backs! But after a week or two we realized we just needed to break it in, and now it's pretty good. We're not in love with our duvet cover, but it was the best deal we could find, and it matched our interesting striped wall paper.

Lastly, here's a random picture of our kitchen. This doesn't do it justice, because the light was shining in so brightly. Our dishwasher had a melt down last night, so our dishes are in the sink until we get it resolved. You can't see the otherside that has our fridge, microwave, oven and my beloved kitchen aid---which is amazing.

That's all I have for now. I would post pics of the outside, but our landlady is repainting the trim and it looks terrible right now. Hopefully in a week or two it will be all spiffed up!

Catching Up...

Where are we these days anyway? Well, we've gone to Boise, Idaho. We love it here. We're both graduates of BYU with degrees in Communications. David plans to go on to dental school and is finishing some classes at BSU. Our Boise State pride pales compared to the Cougar blood running through our veins, but since everyone else in town seems to be obsessed, I am trying to muster some enthusiasm. I work full time at a staffing agency. I actually really like it. The days zoom by. There isn't a second to look at the clock and wonder when the day will be over. I work with great ladies who have some hilarious stories you wouldn't believe. I get to go through dozens of resumes a day, plow through mounds of paper work, and I have an unlimited supply of instant oatmeal. Does life get better? Ha. But really, I do enjoy it.

We are both on the activities committee. I think it's a great fit since we go to every ward function known to man. That's partly because we don't really know anyone else yet. :)

We live in a little yellow house that we love. It's really cute inside and we are working on making it home. The neighborhood is right next to BSU and David can ride his bike to school each morning. That is, he would ride his bike, if it hadn't had its lock cut and been stolen straight out of our yard! We have some theories about who took it. But we've been playing detective the last few days and have had no luck.

We got so many amazing kitchen appliances for our wedding that I am constantly cooking! David and I are obsessed with pizza. No. That's an understatement. We pretty much crave pizza at every moment of the day and night. So, we eat pizza every Friday and it's a blast. We've been making it ourselves, and we've gotten pretty good. But last Friday we got two Papa John's pizzas and (being the fatties that we are) ate them both. It was an incredible experience!

I'd say that's a decent update. Boise has been good to us, but we will keep you updated. And, I'll post pictures when I get my act together!