Thanksgiving, our first tree, my finished pottery and much more

I know this is has taken me forever and I know that it is almost Christmas, but I still really wanted to post these. Thanksgiving was really fun. We went to Idaho to Chad's grandma's house. She lives in Rupert. A lot of Chad's aunts, uncles and cousins came. This is a picture of everyone that was there.

We really had a lot of fun!

This is his Uncle John and Aunt Diane.

Aunt Diane again and our cousin Mathew.

This is our cousin Sam.

This is Aunt Sherrie and cousins Allison and Ashton.

Here is our cousin Tyler and our nephew Dalton.

My second bout of news is my niece Brielle's baby blessing. It was on November . It was a wonderful blessing. Nichole and Chase did it at their house and Chase gave a really beautiful blessing. Here's the happy family.



Here is sweet baby Brielle. My mom made her blessing dress. It was beautiful.

And Chase might be mad at me for pointing this out, but I really have to. It's too nice not to point out. Here is Chase and Brielle right after the blessing. Note: the tear on Chase's cheek. Real men cry when they are blessing their babies.

Okay, thirdly, I finally finished all of the pottery I have been working on all semester! It turned out really good and I must say that I am really proud of myself. The first one pictured below is called a horse-hair pinch-pot. The black squiggly lines on it are horse hair and the little tiny black specks is sugar. We put both these on the pot when it was hot out of the kiln. This is my favorite.


This next one is also a pinch-pot but it has a crackle glaze. Thus the cracks in the glaze. Yes, it is supposed to be like that.


This one is a soft slab pot. It will be someones Christmas present....wonder who?

The next two are also soft slabs, but not presents. I'm keeping these.



I'm also keeping this one. Its a hard slap box. The glaze is AA Copper. I love how it turned out!


These are the two mugs I made. We already used them for hot chocolate on Sunday when it snowed!



And last, this is my very first tea-pot. Also going to be a Christmas gift to a very special someone.




We were so excited, ok, I was so excited, to get our first Christmas tree. We shopped around at some tree lots and ended up getting our tree from Hope Depot. Ha ha. Kinda a cop out, but it was cheaper. Here is our 6 foot tree in our little tiny apartment, pre-decorating.

Mid decoration...

More decorating... he was annoyed because I kept wanting to take pictures of this milestone. But he did it anyway. That's why I love him!


Almost done now...


I made the bow myself. I must say that I think they are pretty awesome.

Another...


Our very inexpensive ornaments from Target...


And lastly our Star.


And drum roll please... the finished product.

We had fun decorating our first tree.

Oh and these are our stockings.

And I really couldn't get away with this long blog without posting something about the fish tank. We got a new addition to the tank. It is a Niger Trigger. They call them triggers because when they eat you can here their jaws close and it sounds like a trigger being pulled. Or maybe I made that up...still you can here their jaws close and its way cool. This guy is still pretty small.

And last, but certainly not least I thought I would blog about this. I think its really cool, maybe you won't and I'm just a nerd. The first presidency always gives a Christmas gift to all of the church's employees every year. This year they gave us a hand crafted Italian leather Hymnal. It is really beautiful and the picture doesn't do it justice.

Also, the card they gave us was really nice.


It's pretty awesome to have a job where you get things like this.

Twilight and Mexico....

Merida, Mexico

So first of all I forgot to mention in our last blog that my younger brother Cody got called on a mission to Merida, Mexico. He doesn't report to the MTC until March, 4th so we still have some more time left with him. I am so excited for him, but I will really miss him. We were very close growing up and although we are a few states apart right now we are still close. I will miss him a lot, but I know this is what he is supposed to do. Also, not to brag about my brother too much, but he just got named first team all nation and first team Cal for water polo. For you non-water polo players this means that not only is my brother one of the ten best water polo players in California, but also in the nation! He really is an awesome player! I'm jealous. Anyways we're all really proud of him.

TWILIGHT!!

Secondly, I went and saw twilight last night and absolutely loved it! I know there will be a lot of cynical people out there that will complain because the movie wasn't exactly like the book and they left this and that out and while some of that may be true I still think it was awesome. I think the director and screenwriter did a very good job of turning a book into a movie, which I am sure is no easy task. I can't even imagine trying to fit all of Stephenie Meyer's wonderful insight into a two hour movie. So for what its worth I think they did an awesome job doing that.


Also I thought that the actors were spot on. Edward and Bella I am sure weren't exactly what I had pictured them and there were a few scenes I didn't care for, but for the most part, they captured the characters very well. I could definitely feel the tension on screen just like you can feel it when your reading Stephenie Meyer's book. I was really amazed.


Again, there were a few cheesy lines added that definitely weren't in the book and the scene in the forest where bella admits that she knows Edward is a vampire is a little over the top for my taste, but I still liked the majority of the movie. I really, really liked the baseball scene. It was really creative. Ok, so I am sure you are tired of hearing me ramble on. I'll say just one more time it was really good and I think that if people are negative about the movie they need to lighten up a little!! I would recommend it to anyone.


I will definitely post pictures from our Thanksgiving in Idaho later, but I am at work so I can't really do it right now...

Life, Jobs and Fun

We (and when I say we, I mean I, Clair, because Chad isn't much of a blogger) haven't blogged in a while. A month to be exact. Probably because not a lot has been going on. I am very excited because I recently found out that the Church magazines have internships 3 times a year and there next round of interviews is coming up in February. I am going to interview and hopefully I will get one of the 5 internships they offer for next fall, or starting September of 2009. We would have to stay in Utah a little longer than we were planning, but my wonderful husband has agreed to so that I can fulfill my dream of working for a church magazine. In case you haven't noticed lately, newspapers are going downhill and most other magazines aren't worth writing for. I really hope I do get the internship. It would be awesome.
Chad's job hasn't be so great lately. His work just doesn't have very many jobs right now so they have been cutting back his hours back here and there. But luckily my job is letting me work more hours to make up for it. So Chad just hasn't been happy at his job lately and has decided that he really doesn't like land surveying. So... drum roll please.. he has decided he wants to pursue fire fighting. I know, a little different from land surveying, out it is something he has wanted to do for a long time. He is already registered for an EMT class at slcc next semester. He is really excited. I admit I was a little hesitant at first. My sister is a fire fighters wife and it isn't the easiest, but I am still really happy for Chad. I just want him to do something that he enjoys every day. And even if he changed careers for more times before he finds what makes him happy, thats fine with me.
We are both really happy that our semester is almost over and we are excited just like every one else for the upcoming holidays. Tomorrow we will be driving up to Idaho to spend Thanksgiving with Chad's grandma Bringhurst and a bunch of his aunts, uncles and cousins. We are really excited because we haven't seen them in a while. Unfortunately, we will only be able to stay Wednesday night because I have to work on Friday and Saturday. I know, bummer. But oh well. Guess I won't be shopping on Black Friday. Darn I really wanted to get up at 4 am and then get in a fight with some lady in Wal Mart over a $5 movie and then have to stand in line for an hour just to pay for my $5 movie. Oh wait, I guess I'm really not upset that I have to work, except for the fact that I can't spend the long weekend with my husband. I'm sure he'll figure out something to entertain himself. Well thats really all I have to report other than posting some adorable pictures of my wonderfully cute niece. My sister came over on Saturday for a visit. It was Brielle's first visit to our apartment! Thanks Nichole!

Isn't she just so cute???


She wasn't feeling the camera in this picture...



She like her hand.

I saved the cutest for last! Look at her chubby cheeks.

Oh and I forgot we also went to Chad's cousins house. Johnny and Lorna live in Pleasant Grove. We had a lot of fun watching the BYU vs Utah game and were the only one rooting for Utah. Good thing they won!

This is their cute daughter Lily and my goofy husband. Lily kept bouncing her head against the couch so Chad joined in and I got a shot of them being silly.

Bringhurst Update...

So Chad and I don't have a lot to report. We stay very busy with school and work. Chad was just recently out of town to Rico, Colorado for a few days. I always miss him, but he always gets lots of overtime hours so we are always very thankful for his out of town opportunities. My mom was here last week to stay with my sister Nichole who just had her first baby. We had fun visiting with her. This last week I had fall break, so a whole week off of school! Yay! I have missed my pottery class while off school though. Here are a few of the pieces I have made so far.


Chad continues to add more interesting creatures to our salt water fish tank. We had a disease in our tank kill off all our fish. yes, sad, i know. So because of that we had to wait about 45 days before we could put in another fish. We still have about a week left to wait. But for now he has added a few other creatures.


In the left corner is our first anemone and just below and to the left of that is a soft coral called Xenia. Then under the rock arch is a fire shrimp. That little thing is really fun to watch. It will climb all the way up Chad's arm when Chad cleans the tank. On the sand is our red hermit crab.

It's kind of hard to see, but in this picture is our Emerald Crab. He is right in the center of the picture.

This is our second anemone. They are so beautiful. I had to convince Chad to get this, he would have preferred some other weird looking thing.

Lastly I just wanted to post these pictures of Chad and I. One is the night of the first "Snow" of the season. It was melted by morning, but I'm still counting. The other picture we both just really like.

Brielle Nichole Tandy!!

So this is my first niece and I couldn't be more excited!!Her name is Brielle Nichole Tandy. She was 6 lbs 13 oz and 19 inches (I think). She has a full head of dark brown hair and is so cute. I am very excited to be an aunt in case you can't tell. Anyways, My sister Nichole gave birth about 1 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. There were some minor complications, but both mother and baby are home now and doing just fine.



Isn't she adorable??

I am really terrible about blogging...

So I have been absolutely horrible about blogging. As you can tell I have only done it once. I thought I would just do a great big one now and catch everyone up with Chad and I! This summer has been extremely busy...and stressful...for us. But it has great none the less!! We have gotten to see our family a huge amount, which is great because they live all the way in California! We went to Idaho Memorial Day Weekend to visit Chad's family.
If I look a little weird in this picture it's because I has Bell's Palsy for a matter of weeks over the summer and it cause half of my face to go numb. So I could basically could only smile with like half of my face! It was horrible. But Chad took very good care of me.



This is Michelle's(Chad's mom)parents home in Burley Idaho. Their house is right on the snake river. It is a beautiful view. There is a fire pit out back so we made a fire and roasted marshmallows...



...and of course, Chad's cousin Sam played us some camp fire songs on his guitar. He is really awesome!



On Memorial Day we were back in Salt Lake and had a really fun day. We were celebrating my birthday a few days late because Chad was out of town on my real birthday. So we got all dressed up... Chad really loves this... I like it, but I will be honest, heels really hurt my feet! Anyway we went to dinner at Johnny Carinos, my favorite restaurant and then went to the movies to see the Chronicles of Narnia, which we both really liked.

We also went to a Memorial Day breakfast this weekend (Monday) for my family (The Hills) at George Washington Park up the canyon. It was a rainy morning but still beautiful. Chad and I always love taking drives up the canyon because it is so beautiful regardless of what season it is. So the breakfast was really good and we really enjoyed visiting with family we hadn't seen in a while.

Lauren and Molly Hill.

The backbone of our family. Grandpa and Grandma Hill. We love them and all the hard work they put into events like our annual Memorial Day Breakfast. It wouldn't happen without them.

The Rands Family getting warm by the fire.

Some of the Scott Hill Family.

Silly boys...

Cousins...

At the end of June, a month later, we headed off to California!! We left on the 28th and were supposed to stay until the 7th of July.... but the universe had other plans for us! We were just rolling into Sacramento, about an hour from our home town of Modesto, when our 2002 Audi started vibrating very seriously. We thought a tire would pop off any second! Luckily we made it to Modesto, but we were very concerned. To make an extremely long story short, we took our car to about 5 mechanics over a span of a few days and ended up finding out that we needed a new transmission. This was after of course we were told about three other things were wrong with our car when they weren't. The parts couldn't get shipped in time for us to get back to Utah when we planned so Chad flew home to get back to work while I planned to drive the car back when it got fixed. Another week goes by and it still isn't fixed so I too had to fly home to get back to work while our car stayed in California. Our transmission finally was replaced and our poor car was fixed. My dear brother drove our car all the way back to Utah for us by himself. We don't know what we would have done without him!
So that was the bad part of our trip. In between stressing about our car we still managed to fit in some fun times.

The first weekend there we went to my dads cabin in Leland Meadows. We also went to the lake as well. It was very relaxing after all the stresses of our car.

I'm not sure how much my little sister Ariana enjoyed riding on the intertube with me. I'm also not too sure that I enjoyed it that much either...it was a little low on air and my butt was hitting every little wave along the way. Didn't feel the best.

I must say that it was pretty hilarious watching my 6 foot something brother try to stay on this not so big intertube while his much smaller girlfriend was also trying to hold on for dear life. Needless to say, Cody didn't make that trip on the tube. Too bad I didn't get a picture of them flying off the next second.


Chad and I however conquered the inner tube and managed somehow not to fall off. It was way fun! Wish we could do that every weekend.

Sisters. My little sister Ariana is 9 and so full of energy. Gosh I wish I had her energy. I miss her!


My dad, the boat driver. Our little lake trips wouldn't be possible without him. He is so good to us. I love the safari hat. That thing has been with us since the beginning! Ha ha

My wonderful handsome husband, my little brother and his girlfriend, ironically named Ariana just like our little sister.


Chad wakeboarding...


Cody Wakeboarding... I think this picture is really awesome.