Spring on the Palouse

Springtime in Moscow is beautiful. 

This is at the beginning of Spring when everything was beginning to turn green.

Morning run up the road from where we live.  I loved the clouds in this picture.

I go on walks with my friend, Chelsey, and her kids.  We always stop and see the animals.  This day they the gate was open and the ducks were walking all over the place.  We also get to see pigs, chickens, roosters, and horses.  Who needs a zoo when your neighbors up the street have animals?

The Arboretum on campus.  Our first time was 2 weeks ago.  So sad we didn't go sooner. I love this photo!

In the Arboretum.

I don't think these pictures do justice to how beautiful it really is right now in Moscow.

Everything is even greener since these pictures were taken.

I will miss the rolling green hills of the Palouse.

Halloween

Have you ever been in a flash mob?

I have.

On Halloween night.

We danced to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

In front of a hundred people.

I cannot believe I did it.

But I did.

Here is proof.

Did you see Cat Woman?

Photo from the Halloween party we went to the week before Halloween.
The one where we won best costume!

Moscow friends!

Guess Who?

Can you guess who my husband decided to be for a Halloween Party?

By the way, I whipped out my mad sewing skills to make his mask, cape and booties.

"Catwoman"

FYI: We won best costume...and a dance off.
It was pretty amazing.

If you guessed Nate was a luchador...
you are a winner!

Life is busy

Life has been busy around the Cuoio household the past couple of weeks. And when I say busy I mean school busy and only a little bit of fun for Nate mixed in.
So here is a run down of what has been going on.

*First off, today we celebrate 10 months of marital bliss!

*In February, Nate went to Washington D.C. and University of Virginia for a Federalist Society Conference. It was Nate's 1st time to the Nations Capital. Nate met Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and got his autograph. Nate really enjoyed seeing all the sites in Washington D.C. and listening to Clarence Thomas speak about his childhood and being raised by his grandfather.

University of Idaho students with Clarence Thomas

*For the past month, Nate has been very busy working on a law paper that is worth 50% of his grade. He spent all of his spring break working on it and this week he has spent his days and evenings working on it. Last night he was up until 2:30 working on it. I am so glad it is due tomorrow because I am sick of him working on it and his brain is fried so he needs a break.

*For the past 3 months, I have spent pretty much every moment of every day in Lewiston High School. I am happy to report that this past Friday was my last day of teaching! I will return to the high school for 3 days after spring break this week and then I will be DoNE with student teaching!
Student teaching has been a great experience and I have learned a lot but it has been exhausting and frustrating at times. After this experience I am not sure if I am cutout to be a teacher. I think I might be better off teaching mini sewing and cooking classes out of my home. Then I wont have to make lesson plans and I can teach people who actually want to learn what I am teaching. Doesn't that sound like a good plan?

Here is a picture of Lewiston High School. It was built in 1927 and is very run down.
Photo via.

*As I write this list of what we have been busy with it seems dinky and pathetic. But I tell you we have been busy. I feel like I do not stop from when I rise at 5:30 in the morning to when I crawl into bed at night. School has swamped me. I never thought student teaching would be so time consuming. I thought writing lesson plans would be a breeze...I was wrong. I am so excited for this week. It is my first spring break in 3 years! I am excited to sleep in (if my body will allow it), exercise, relax, and make some descent meals for my husband.

* I cannot end without announcing some great news! I am happy to report that a baby Nielson will be added to the family! My brother, Ryan and his wife Rachel will be adopting a baby boy in August. Our family could not be more excited for them. They are so deserving of this little one and I know they are going to be wonderful parents!

Apples

Yesterday we went to WSU to pick apples. We had a great time with our friends the Cahoon's (Brett, Hailey, and Noah). We walked the rows of trees picking, talking and sampling the apples. They were delicious.

It was such a beautiful fall day in Northern Idaho.

Nate thought this branch was amazing...so we had to get a picture with it.

(The Cahoon's)

Nate thinks Noah is the cutest baby and will be one happy dad
if our children look anything like him.

From our apple picking adventure we came home with 22 lbs of apples. The next
few days I will be busy eating apples, making apples sauce, apple pie, and
Nate wants me to try and make apple cider. Hopefully it all goes well!

BLACKBERRIES

30 minutes southeast of Moscow there are two little towns that have blackberries growing on the side of the road. The past two weeks we have gone with friends from our ward to pick blackberries. For those of you who do not know, blackberries are brutal. They have thorns so you have to be very careful when picking or you will come away with slivers and cuts.

The first time we picked berries on a side of a hill that was covered with rocks and wood. We had to climb on the rocks and wood which were not very sturdy. It was actually kind of scary and not very safe. When we were about to leave Nate stepped on some weak wood which collapsed and he fell and hit his head. He had no way to catch himself since he had blackberries in his hand. He hit his head pretty hard...luckily he did not get knocked out and he only came away with a tiny cut and bump on his head. We were able to get 1/2 to 3/4 of a gallon of blackberries because a lot of the berries were still red.

The second time we went, we went to a different area to pick and the whole side of a hill was covered in blackberry bushes. There were so many large and ripe blackberries that we were able to get about a gallon and a half!

So what have we done with all those blackberries?

• They are actually yummy to eat. I was not sure they would be that good because growing up we never had or ate fresh blackberries. They are actually really tasty and I like to eat them by the handfuls.
• I put them on my oatmeal. They help naturally sweeten the oatmeal up without using sugar.
• I made some jam out of some of the blackberries and it is actually really good. Raspberry jam is my favorite and I do not usually eat any other kind of jam but the blackberry jam is almost as good as the raspberry jam.
• I also froze some so I can continue to put them on my oatmeal and also put them into smoothies.

Picking blackberries is probably the best thing we have found out about Moscow. It is too bad that blackberry season is not very long. Hopefully we will be able to get out and pick one more time before they are all gone.

Last week we also did Bountiful Basket and we came away with a ton of fruits and vegetables. We have pretty much eaten all of the vegetables but we are still working on the fruit. I am going to make a peach pie tonight with the peaches we got!!

Moscow

We have made it to Moscow. We rolled in last Tuesday evening after a 10 hour drive. We have settled into our nice apartment and have pretty much figured out the city since it is small.

(My dad took this picture as he was leaving back to Poky at like 5 in the morning. I think the sky is way pretty. We are the top right.)

Moscow is a little city. It has so many hills and a lotof trees. You cannot see the whole city from one spot in the city because there are so many hills and there is not a tall enough one to over look the city. This is one thing we do not like about it because we love to see the city and see what is around us. There is not a whole lot here and not a whole lot to do. They do however have a mall that is better than Pocatello's because it has a Macy's.

So what have we been up to since we arrived?
The first few days consisted of us unpacking and organizing our things, figuring things out for school, going to the mall every day for internet because the internet people could not come and set ours up for a week, and figuring out campus (it seems like half of campus consists of sororities and fraternities).

On Saturday we went to Spokane to go to the temple. It is the smallest operating temple. This means you have to make an appointment to go. We did not know this so we had to wait in the waiting area to see if there would be room the already full session. About 10 minutes before the session was supposed to start the Temple President came out of the temple and asked if we were apart of a wedding party that was about to take place. Of course we weren't and we said we did not know that we had to make an appointment to go to a session. He went back into the temple and talked to the temple workers and they added some fold up chairs so we could go to the session we wanted to. It was such a blessing because we would have had to wait an hour and fifteen minutes. After we went to the temple we went to downtown Spokane and walked around and went to eat.

After we went to the temple we went to downtown Spokane and walked around and went to eat. They had this great park there. This monument is in the park to honor the railroad.


On Monday, Nate started his orientation that goes all week. Thank goodness it is over tomorrow. It has been a couple of slow days without him. It will be good once school starts so we both can be busy.

Wednesday was Nate's birthday! He turned 29! We had some couples over for poppy seed cake and cheesecake. Nate blew all 28 candles out (was supposed to be 29 but Ashley cannot count...oops). Nate was all right with it because he thinks 29 is old.

Nate got some nice new brown church shoes for his birthday that he has been needing.
(showing off his shoes that he loves!)

We are excited for this new adventure in Moscow even though it seems way to far from home (at least for Ashley).