Pocatello

It was a busy few days in Pocatello. In between visiting Grandpa Cuoio we were able to play tennis, watch my brother Tanner play football, met my Grandpa Nielson's "girlfriend", went out to eat with Nate's family, went to Brigham City for my Grandpa Nielson's 84th Birthday (which included seeing my brothers and extended family), reminisced about Grandpa Cuoio with Nate's family, and I made carmel apples with my mom.

It was such a great, sad, fun, exhausting weekend. We were able to fit a lot into a small amount of time, which meant not much time for studying. We are now back in Moscow hitting the books...Well Nate is... I am already caught up in my classes.

I am so grateful things worked out the way they did with Nate's classes. I am grateful we were able to go to Pocatello to be with family. Heavenly Father really watches out for us and knows when we need to be with family especially in hard and difficult times.

This is the only picture I got of the trip but I love it! My younger brother is
so cute and I love him! He is also a great quarterback.

Bert Cuoio

This past weekend Nate and I went home to Pocatello to see this good man, Grandpa Cuoio.

Last week Nate's grandpa had a heart attack. Nate ended up not having class on Thursday and Friday so on Wednesday afternoon we headed to Pocatello to see grandpa before he passed away on Saturday at the young age of 97. We are so grateful we were able to spend a couple more hours with him on this earth.

I did not know Grandpa Cuoio very well but from the first time I met him I loved him. He was always very kind and nice to me. Grandpa Cuoio told Nate every time we went to visit that he did well, referring to Nate dating me and then later marrying me. Nate remembers his grandpa always wanted to know how he was doing and what he was up to. His grandpa wanted to make sure he was doing what was right. He was grateful his grandpa cared so much about him and cared about what he was doing in his life.

These past few days I have learned more about Grandpa Cuoio. He really had a love for baseball and played baseball in California and Texas for some major league farm teams. A fun fact is while Grandpa Cuoio was playing baseball in California he met and played with Joe DiMaggio.

Grandpa Cuoio was a great man and will be missed.

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!

I like to make messes...

I like to make messes... when I cook.

Nate says I am really good at it too.

I cannot argue with him because he is right.

Look at what I did to myself today.

I don't think these pictures do the mess justice. The mixture of cocoa and water was everywhere. I think we might find cocoa in places we would not expect for the next few months.
It was horrible but funny.

I also bumped the cocoa off the counter and it ended up all over the floor...oops.

I will let you know I followed the directions but they were crappy directions. Right after I put the water, butter and cocoa together in the Kitchen Aid...I knew it would be disastrous. When I turned my Kitchen Aid on I realized I was probably supposed to melt those things in a saucepan. Too bad it was too late because everything had gone everywhere. I was right about the melting because as I read over the directions again it said to pour those ingredients into the dry ingredients. Well why the heck did they not tell me to bring those things to a boil on the stove? Oh well, Nate and I had a great laugh and the cake thankfully tasted yummy topped with ice cream and strawberries!!

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).

BeST dAy of My LIfE!

4 weeks ago (May 27th),

Nate and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple! It was the best day of my life.
The day went by so fast. It almost seems like it was a dream but it was the best dream I have ever had and I am glad it really happened!!

The day was absolutely perfect!

We were blessed to have family and close friends
at the temple to be apart of our special day. The ceremony was beautiful and I
loved the spirit I felt in the sealing room. I loved kneeling across the alter
from Nate. He is one good looking guy!
The weather was also perfect. My mom had been praying for months for
good weather and all that praying helped since we were blessed with cloudy,
70 degree weather (perfect for taking pictures in).


After the wedding, we had a dinner with our family and
close friends. We had a live band so we danced the night away. There
were some great memories made on the dance floor including:
1st Dance With My Nathan (he has dancing skills),


Dancing With My Dad (I did not know he had so many moves),

and
Dancing With My Grandpa Nielson.


The day went perfect and I believe it was the best wedding ever!!
Thank you family and friends for supporting Nate and I on our wedding day. We love you all and were so glad we could spend our Wedding Day with you!