Halloween is alive and well

Don't give up on us yet. For family night this week Emily and I gutted our pumpkin together, then I deserted her to go study. When I came home, this is the masterpiece I encountered:
Amazing!! Tonight was a real treat for me, because I talked Emily into dressing up in the flower costumes I made with some friends right when we started dating. She dragged her feet, but we had a great time with it at our ward party. We also got a lot of smiles at the hospital (see below).
The best part of our night was seeing Brady and Kari's new baby, our friends out here. She was just perfect! Happy Halloween all! (I need to get back to studying!!!)

Vermont Trip

One of the highlights of living out here so far is our recent trip to Vermont. Since we were in the midst of moving and cleaning houses when our anniversary and birthday's rolled around this year, we used that as an excuse to go on a little trip. We wanted to go where the trees would be turning all kinds of fall colors. My friend from Young Women's in Power Ranch used to live back here and told of us some must-see's. So we headed off on a Friday morning as Geoff has one Friday a month off. Our first stop was a maple syrup and cheese farm. Although the farm was rather rinky-dink, it was fun to see how they tap the trees and then make maple syrup. And my favorite cheese was smoked. Geoff is a "sharp" man and liked the 8 1/2 year cheese (their oldest) best. The next stop was Joseph Smith's birthplace. The spirit of peace was definately present and it was an inspiring place to be for a couple hours. We bumped into a couple from an area in Switzerland where Geoff served. They knew some of the people he knew!


Then it was on to the Van Trapp Family Lodge. Although there were no singers it is a really cool place to stay. Lots of pictures around of the family and nice atmosphere. That evening we ate fondue and Weinerschnitzel at The Swisspot Restaurant. MMMMmmmmmmm!

The following morning we walked around the hill behind the hotel for awhile. Tons of beautiful trees in fall colors and perfect weather made it a great morning. We saw wild turkeys and a deer grazing in the grass just behind the lodge. No, Matt. You cannot shoot on the premises. Don't even daydream about it.

We found a little stone chapel and I fired up the podium for awhile. I'm sure there are definately some mice that are feeling repentant to this day.

Then we headed towards home, hitting an apple-cider mill up for some fresh cider, and Ben and Jerry's factory for some fun info and ice cream. Check out the picture Geoff captured in Stowe, Vermont.

Cache #2

This may still prove to be a passing fancy, but at this point it sure still is fun! Before we left for Vermont I got online and looked up a GeoCache just a few miles from our hotel that promised a nice hike as well as another find. Both were just about right along the lines of what we were looking for. It was funny that this container was a lot bigger and full of a bunch of worthless trinkets that the hard-core cachers apparently get excited about. We are not quite there yet!

But here is a great picture of the falls and my beautiful wife just a hundred feet upstream from where the container was.

Our "first" picture!!

Seems like everything is big news these days, but this time it really is!! For those of you who are not Johnsons or Streeters, you may not be as familiar with the fact that we make our baby announcing a puzzle in our families. If you look back through the "Tour of New Haven" entry, fill in the blanks and select out the red ones, you get IARPL51, which unscrambles to be April 15!! Our due date!!

Emily had her first appointment with her new doctor, and I spent the entire next week convincing her it was alright if I came along. What an amazing experience, I mean probably more amazing for me since I was just the innocent bystander in the pepto-bismol pink room. But once we established that we really did think there was a baby in there, she pulled out the magic wand, and voila:
I don't mean to get all sentimental, but seeing that little flutter of a heartbeat and hearing that by all accounts everything seems to be fine were some of the most proud moments of my life. Isn't he (that's our guess right now) amazing?!!!
We can't wait until he can hear us so we can let him know how excited we are for him to crash our party of two. In anticipation of that day we have decided to sleep in every chance we get! :)