Halloween

October 28th - John's internship put on a haunted house for the community. John was a guide through the house and they asked me to play their out of tune piano. With a limited budget, I just bought a packet of black feathers to make a hairpiece and earrings with.

Sort of fun.

Because we live a block away from "sorority row", we waited to carve our pumpkins until Halloween night. My pumpkin was pregnant with twins...two different starts inside of it. I guess that's what happens when your pumpkins are inside in the warm...

For our Halloween movie, we picked up Tim Burton's "9" from the library. We had seen it once before, and it seemed fitting. It was definitely not half as scary the second time around. That's the extent that our horror film viewing gets though.

In our marriage we have 2 knives. A butcher knife that came with our pots and pans, and a paring knife that we received as a gift. John came up with an AWESOME idea for a pumpkin that will just have to wait til next year seeing our paring knife wasn't going to work for the detail it needed.

Whitesides Weekend

Even before we moved to Denver, we were excited to know that Ty's book tour would bring him through on a visit. Even better was the news that because of UEA, Connie would be able to join him. Then an extra bonus, Brittney was also on break and she and Melody came to visit too. It was so good to see friends and family!

I got to spend Thursday with the girls while John was in school and Ty had yet arrived. It was so nice to spend some girl time together.

Melody go the visitor sticker for our visit to watch Ty's school presentation. It's a very fun presentation with a great message for the kids. I texted Tyler during the presentation letting him know I was watching his video in Colorado. It's so fun to see friends doing so well and having so much fun doing it.

John joined us at after school for the book signing.

Brittney spent Saturday with family and we took Ty and Connie for quite the unintended adventure. It started with a DU homecoming brunch that ended up being at the campus's Jewish Center. We thought it was an alumni/tailgating thing...oh well. After the campus tour we headed downtown. Our first stop was the Denver library. Ty found and offered to sign his book while Connie and I started a checkers match. After Connie had beat me, we were asked to leave the children's area since they didn't typically let adults come in and hang out. And thus we were kicked out of the children's section of the library.

Along with all the "Occupying" going on across the nation, Denver too has its bunch of protesters hanging out in front of the Denver capital. We steered clear of the protesters and made our way through the state troopers to the Mile High step of the capitol building. A couple blocks away is the US Mint (closed on Saturdays) and we decided to swing by and take a look at the building. Walking behind the mint though, we ran into a group of 30ish SWAT members that we think were just setting up for the march the Occupiers would later be going on...more on that below.

To get away from the craziness that was around the Civic center, we decided to head to the Denver Performing Arts Complex and walk the pedestrian 16th street mall.

John and I had driven by this statue that has now been deemed the "Lance and Evan" statue...so we needed pictures of it for them.

At the Colorado convention center is this enormous Blue Bear sculpture titled "I see what you mean". John gave it some love...

Standing under the bear.

We headed to the 16th street mall only to find, no joking, thousands of Zombies. Apparently it was part of Denver's annual Zombie crawl and was just perfect ending to a most random day. Even more entertaining to me was to later find that the Occupy protest had begun its march down the 16th street mall only to encounter the zombie party. I wish I would have been at that meeting...

We got to spend that evening with Ty and Connie and spent Sunday at church and the McMurtreys seeing Melody and Brittney one more time before they all caught their flights. It was one crazy weekend...I'm glad we had other people to witness it with us.

Lookout Mountain Road

My favorite picture from October 3rd I forgot to add...Looking west from Lookout Mountain Road

Fall

October 3rd - Highway 119 past Black Hawk, the background Mountains are covered with the Aspens

October 15th - 3 blocks from our house

October 19th - 1 block from our house, beautifully tree-lined roads

October 19th - Love the oak trees!!

October 19th - Also right next to our house

A spiritual boost

Our situation hasn't changed much here. John's in the middle of midterms and I've started teaching 3 students and am looking for more while still looking for a job. The beginning of this month was the spiritual boost I needed. It started with the General Relief Society Broadcast.

It was amazing how just in my ward here, a message of "you are not forgotten" could touch each woman so individually. It was no different in my experience.

From President Uchtorf's talk:

"And I know something else: as an Apostle of our Master, Jesus Christ, I proclaim with all the certainty and conviction of my heart—neither are you! You are not forgotten. Sisters, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you with an infinite love."

How amazing was that! To have an Apostle proclaim to me that as I struggle in finding my life here, I'm not forgotten.

http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/forget-me-not?lang=eng&query=forget+me

Then there was General Conference. Our Saturday was spent watching the live feed on our laptop in our apartment. There are the times that there's a message in conference that you feel is applied you, but I had not quite had the experience of knowing that a message was meant for you. Elder Andersen's talk was an answer to the prayers I've been saying since May. When John and I first started talking about starting a family, we thought after he graduated would be our time to start trying. When Denver came into the scene of our life, it seemed impossible to meet the challenges emotionally/financially of moving away/Grad school/and starting a family. Doing one at a time was hard enough, but the idea of both seemed to be too much. We've been continuing our life in faith waiting for answers to help us.

Just a small exerpt:

"It was not in the Garden of Eden that Adam and Eve bore their first child. Leaving the garden, “Adam [and Eve] began to till the earth. … Adam knew his wife, and she [bore] … sons and daughters, and [acting in faith] they began to multiply and to replenish the earth.”11It was not in their Jerusalem home, with gold, silver, and precious things, that Lehi and Sariah, acting in faith, bore their sons Jacob and Joseph. It was in the wilderness. Lehi spoke of his son Jacob as “my first-born in the days of my tribulation in the wilderness.”12 Lehi said of Joseph, “Thou wast born in the wilderness of [our] afflictions; yea, in the days of [our] greatest sorrow did thy mother bear thee.”13"

http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/children?lang=eng

This is not an announcement from us ;) and we understand there is still a lot to be left to the Lord, but it was a much awaited feeling of comfort and a much needed answer to a prayer. It was worth the 5 months of waiting.

John and I are excited to live 10 minutes up the road from the temple. We are not any further away than we ever were in Logan. Our first week here, we pulled up to the gates only to find restoration happening through September. Vernal, UT was the closest temple to us 6 hours away. It is very neat to have a temple announced in Fort Collins, CO so the temples will be closer and even more available here. In previous posts I've mentioned getting into the mountains away from the city. It's amazing what sanctuary the temple provides from all things. It's a complete inner peace that I needed to arm myself with to get through the next couple of months of setting up our life even more in Denver.

Travel, Trial and Triumphs

These past two weeks have been extremely rough for me and John. It's not going to look like it on this post, because we've been trying very hard to do fun things so we aren't constantly in worry and stress. John is interning with the Rocky Mountain Multiple Sclerosis Center doing therapy groups twice a week. As a thank you for the staff, one of the client's parents invited all the staff to a Rockies game in a private suite. John and I rode the lightrail down to the game and it was a very fun night (even though the game was lost).

John's first week of school was quite discouraging and although we spent the weekend at Cherry Creek State Park at our ward campout, we still had a rough week. It was nice to interact and get to know people from the ward better though.

Last week was a lot better as I put in my application for a job I really want. (It felt so much better than applying for stuff I guess I wouldn't mind doing) John, also, had a much better week in classes. Maybe the weeks feel really long, but by the end, we're always ready to get out and do something.

I think John and I must have a thing for waterfalls. It might go with the fact that we like hiking and it's nice when the end of a trail is something as nice as a waterfall, but we've seen quite a few since we've been married. John had a couple of friends suggest Seven Falls just southeast of Colorado Springs. Trying to use another open Saturday to get away for a while, we made the hour and a half drive south. Our first discovery was that we loved Colorado Springs and definitely wish we were living there instead of Denver. Seven Falls is really one giant fall that has 7 tiers. The first viewpoint is accessible by stairs or in-mountain elevator. We went with the elevator. To get closer to the falls however, you can climb 200-something stairs following along the falls to the top. Because I was interested in the hikes on top, I forced my way up the stairs. I didn't see much other than the stair right in front of me...You can see the stairs if you enlage the above photo.

The frightening staircase.

Beyond the top of the stairs was a trail to inspiration point. I wish this picture gave the impression of where we were, but it is sorely lacking.

A view of Bridal Veil Falls from the staircase on our way down.

Garden of the Gods is a free open space park just northwest of Colorado Springs. Since it was on the way back, we decided to give it a look more for future visits. We had limited time since I needed to get back for the Relief Society Broadcast, but it seems like a nice place to spend an afternoon. Definitely nothing compared to our June Arches trip, but a nice area.

I especially enjoyed the Relief Society Broadcast this year! It was such a blessing to be a part of for me. I can't wait for conference this weekend. Between conference and the Denver temple finally reopening next week (it's been closed the whole time we've been here), I so ready to feel the Spirit that comes through the words of the prophets and temple worship.

Washington Park

John and I spent our family home evening at Washington Park . We had bread ends so we decided to see if there were ducks to feed. Between the ducks and Canada geese, we should have brought a few loaves of bread instead of a few ends of bread.

The park has two lakes with different walking/exercise trails around the entire park. It also has beautiful flower gardens and a lot of open space and picnic areas. We'll definitely be back.

Our Stake Fair is a great Stake Fair

Our Stake puts on quite the event for their Stake Fair. There were so many booths with food and activities as well as different dancing and other sorts of carnival entertainment. John and I were not ashamed to get our faces painted as well as participating in as much of the fair as we could.

John and I entered the drawing at the food storage booth and John won us a jar of jam and one of those topsy turvy planters.

As part of the fair they brought in a blow up obstacle course. I totally creamed John, but I guess him coming out of it with a possible broken toe doesn't mean I can claim total victory...

Ways to get away

We were very lucky to be able to spend Labor Day with Brittney's aunt at her home north of Denver. It was a very nice break from job hunting and school stressing. John and I took our turn tubing behind their boat and got to spend some time in the sun with some very fun people.

The turn in the season made us longing for some mountain time. We turned to our map and found Lair o' the Bear park up in the mountains and decided to take a look. It has a very Green Canyon feel to it and it was so nice to just hike around a little bit. Plus our drive took us by more places we just can't wait to explore!

Death Cab at Red Rocks

As we prepared to head to Denver, we were told if there was a band we like touring to the Red Rocks Amphitheater, the venue was worth the money it would cost to see them. Curious, we looked up the schedule and turns out, one of John's top 3 favorite bands was performing there 3 days after we would arrive.

Initially he didn't want me to get the tickets, since they weren't cheap, but we purchased some on the day of when there were still tickets available and we came to terms that it was an experience we would regret not participating in. The venue is fantastic, a natural amphitheater built between natural red rock.

An outdoor theater means the smoking was crazy with the alcohol consumption promting us to leave at the encores to avoid the intoxicated drivers. The show was amazing and so fun!!! I'm so glad we went. Although since then, we've missed concerts by the likes of Adam Pascal and Joshua Bell...I don't think we have enough money to attend all the concerts I'm going to want to see here.

Hogwarts

So the end of July was the Keisel family reunion which John and I put together this year. It's just parents and siblings, so not too complicated. We decided with 4 siblings a Harry Potter theme would prove to be fun with 4 houses to participate in. So we informed every family they would have to attend summer school in order to continue their education at Hogwarts the next year. John designed out t-shirts...a K made out of a lightning bolt, snitch tail and wand.

When we first arrived at camp we made our owlery bag. It served as a mail center and Addyson was especially good at writing and delivering mail to everyone.

Since our reunion was at Mirror Lake in the Uintahs, we took a picnic lunch to Provo Falls and played in the water for a while.

This fella was a surprise as we got finished with our hike into Fehr Lake.

Just one of the cute crafts we did up at camp. We made parachord bracelets, decorated our wizard hats, made stepping stones out of tile grout and found and decorated wands.

Our favorite thing to put together was our Patronus night. We had a list of Native American totems, read through the descriptions of each totem and matched them to our different family members. We enjoyed thinking about each person as we put them together.

Thankful for McDonalds

So as John and I set thing up and wait for internet to be accessible in our house, we have just been thankful for McDonalds WiFi. However, there is much limitation to what we can do in the hour we spend there, so more interesting posts will just have to wait.

Odes and Shoes

When we first moved into our Logan apartment, John drew five lines on our whiteboard and started composing away. Well...it started with just dots and circles, but hen he decided he really wanted to turn it into a song. Each step was a different theory lesson starting with the different lengths of notes, what a key is, how to properly fit it into a meter...but he did it all on his own. I only helped him change one note in measure three in order for it to fit the arpeggio (theory lesson #21). Our whiteboard has been less functional as it has been taken up with this ode for the past year, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It had to be recorded since we won't be able to truly preserve it in the move.

I threw away two of my most favoritest pairs of shoes today...

The first pair were the best black shoes I've ever owned. They were SO comfortable and I wore them to more concerts/gigs/church meetings than any pair of black show should ever last. I figured when the nail was exposed and the shell peeling, it was time to give them up. I've found shoes as cute, but as comfortable...I don't think it'll ever happen again.

The second pair were a pair of tennis shoes I got my sophomore year of high school ten years ago. (Oy! Ten years?) Other than my viola, they are the material possession that has gone through the most with me. They are filled with holes, tears and scratches. The brownish stain in the middle of the tongue, for example, is a blood stain from when my eyebrow was split my senior year of high school providing me with my first stitches (that weren't from surgery). This pair should have received an ode in their passing. But I leave the odes to John.

Lists

I accomplish so much more when I write down my "to do" list. John makes sure I have my list with me when I go grocery shopping. Not only the list...but then pen to cross things off as we go as well. This is the first time in my life, however, that my lists just don't seem to be cutting it. I just can't seem to get everything on my list and can't focus long enough to get anything crossed off. Except for the family reunion stuff. John and I are in charge of the Keisel family reunion next week (14 people, not 140 thankfully). It is just so much more fulfilling to plan our Harry Potter themed family reunion than to schedule dentist appointments and figure out switching our internet from here to Denver. Yeah...planning my life as a wizard wins out over planning my life as the wife of a grad student. At least for now.

Please come to Denver

There's that one song, by that one guy, where a girl talks about rambling boys settling down instead of going to Denver and Boston etc..etc.. "We'll move up into the mountains so far we can't be found." So as John and I embark to the not so mountainous city of Denver for his Master's program, for some reason a blog makes me feel like I'm not moving "so far we can't be found." And although we're not there yet, it feels good to try to start this so it'll be ready to go there!