This past week we decided to take the young women out to Orson's (Morgan's grandfather) house to plant him a flower garden in front of his house. He has been in and out of the hospital as of late and we thought he could use a little pick me up. Mo tilled up the garden for us the night before so on Wednesday night we could just "dig in"!
Morgan has landed his first teaching job, and boy we couldn't be more excited! He interviewed for two positions in the Lafayette area and was offered both! He says it was his natural ability to teach, but I say it was his boyish charm and good looks. He will be the art teacher at Happy Hollow Elementary school where he will teach 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. Here's the link if you'd like to check it out.....
Congratulations Mo!
The beginning stages - taking the before picture, clearing the area, imagining what it will look like.....
The cutting ........ and recutting! 
We decided to start our project at 9pm on a Saturday night, after spending a couple hours at Chuck E. Cheese for our nephew's birthday party. Not the brightest idea! After picking up the rest of our supplies at Lowe's on the way home we began work on our tiling project. Morgan measured for the first cut, and as you can see above, it didn't work out quite as well as we planned. Neither did the second cut, or the third for the matter :) Finally, after a few tries we finally got the cut we needed and started to adhere the first tile sheet to the wall. Unfortunately, we got only one sheet up before needing to make yet another cut. Needless to say, our patience and energy wore out at about 11pm and our tiling project was cut short for the night. We had bigger plans for the evening, like getting all the tile up before pooping out, but as you can see below, we didn't get very far! 
Our project continued a couple days later and went swimmingly as Morgan mastered the art of cutting tile. You'll notice that in most (really all) of these pictures Morgan is the only one pictured working! That's only because I took a break to snap pictures of our progress:)
Finally, the tile has been laid and the wait begins until we are able to grout - 48 hours couldn't come soon enough. We were both excited to see the final product, and after a grueling two hours of mixing the grout, grouting the tile, and then cleaning up we were finally done! 
This year I was surprisingly awarded teacher of the year from the staff at Wainwright. Wednesday was the banquet to celebrate this occasion. The dinner was great - steak, potatoes, broccoli with cheese, and of course dessert - cherry, apple, blueberry, or pecan pie. I would have to say the best part of the dinner was the company as we were able to sit by a fellow WMS teacher, our principal, Robby Delp and his wife, Katie. Fun company through the entire event. Their was an embarassing flair to the evening - as I went up for my T.O.Y plaque our school board representative made me turn around and stand there for a picture (in front of everyone that was there!!!!) So I'm wondering...does my face look a little red in this picture? 
One of our trips before the 2007 year was over included a four day trip to Illinois and Michigan. We started our extended weekend with the Chicago temple. Our trip to the temple was a momentous occasion for us as it was the one year anniversary of our temple marriage. What a wonderful feeling to attend the temple as eternal companions.
t was quite the chore as we both had our own entertainment criteria. I wanted a visually appealing center that fit with the remainder of our decor and could organize the entertainment equipment, house the numerous baskets and knick knacks adorning our home, and keep it from looking like Best Buy threw up in our living room. Morgan, on the other hand, was looking for anything that was high enough to house a TV for his viewing pleasure. We eventually settled on two pieces with the hopes of adding on in the near future. Overall it was a productive and fun day as I introduced Morgan to all the nuances of IKEA.
Our third day we went shopping in Shaumburg 
both been skiing before, but never together. I should also mention that our latest skiing trip had been at least 10 years ago! Needless to say we were both a bit scared of looking completely idiotic on the slopes. My fears were soon dissolved as I quickly 
remembered how to turn, slow down, and stop on the bunnyslopes. However, whoever said bunnyslopes were easy didn't know Morgan. We'll just say that Morgan was able to perfect the patented pie technique, which he continued to use on all the slopes for the remainder of the day. It was quite entertaining! Although I claim to be the "expert" between the two of us, I think we each had our fair share of falls. My favorite was when I hit a large patch of soft snow, flipped and twisted my body in ways I didn't think I could, ripped my new snow pants, and created a beautiful purplish-blue shiner on my shin with one of my skis. 