Life Update

Our announcement t-shirts

My fifth grade class on Halloween - I was a basketball game

Halloween

Our pumpkins

Ok! I am really bad at keeping up with this thing!! Hopefully I will have more time soon.

SO! Here is the update:

Derek:

Derek is doing great. He is in his second-to-last semester at school. He is doing well (as usual). At this point he has been applying to lots of jobs and consequently he has been having lots of interviews! We were in Utah last weekend for an interview he had with BD medical. We are going to Austin, TX on Thursday because he has an interview with National Instruments - they are flying us both out! Then he leaves again next Wednesday for Ohio because he has an interview with Honda! We have been extremely blessed so far! We will see if anything comes from it!

He just registered for his last semester in school and among other things he is taking Bowling, Archery, and Weight Lifting. It should be pretty difficult.... :) His internship from the summer called him last week and asked him to come back. He was a hard worker over the summer and they felt the void! So, he will be working a couple of days a week. We are glad for the opportunity because we've got a baby coming! He will probably work till Christmas. He is still tutoring when he has time as well.

Amanda:

I have been student teaching in the 5th grade for the last 3 months! I only have a week and a half left! I can't even believe it. I have been going to school for the last 16 years of my life!! It is about to end! Student teaching has been WONDERFUL! I have the best class. I love my students and I have learned so much about myself as a person and as a teacher. It has been nothing short of a blast.

Oh yeah! I'm pretty sure anyone who reads this already knows, but I'm pregnant! I will be 24 weeks tomorrow! I am progressively getting bigger and it has been sooooo much fun!! I have had a wonderful pregnancy so far. I haven't ever been sick, I feel really great. As I get bigger my back has been hurting a little, and today my hips felt like they were about to pop out but that is just recently!

Derek and I were called to be Sunday School Teachers in the Marriage and Family Relations class. We had the same calling in our last ward so we know what we are doing! yay! We are extremely excited for the Holidays. We are spending Thanksgiving with my family here in Idaho and then we will head to Farmington for Christmas! It will be great!

Baby Whipple:

Our baby boy has been kicking up a storm. He knows how to move! I have been able to feel him for about a month now. Derek can feel him move too! It never gets old. It is so wonderful to be able to feel him moving together. I know that Derek feels more a part of the pregnancy now that he can feel our son moving too. It gets more and more real as his due date gets closer. February 28th doesn't seem too far away considering we've got the Holiday season to get through. After that its just 2 months away. We have started to buy things here and there for him. We've got some clothes and other random things. There is a lot to buy for someone so SMALL! We just got a cradle off of Craigslist today for 20 bucks! Worth it! We won't buy a crib until we know when and where we are moving after Derek graduates in April.

18 weeks

19 weeks

20 weeks

22 weeks

24 weeks

We Are Still Here!

I know it has been a LONG time.... a really long time.... almost a year but we are still around! Life has been busy! I am going to start updating my blog regularly so that people can know what we are doing with our lives! At this point in our lives:

1. We are living in Idaho Falls for the summer - with my parents (to save money). We made a little home in their library downstairs so we are surrounded by books!

2. Derek is doing an internship for a company called CH2M which is working to clean up nuclear waste out at the INL site. He gets up at 4:30 every morning and works 10 hour days but he enjoys himself. It is nice that he is not selling this summer. We actually get to spend weekends together! This is our first summer not selling and it has been an awesome change.

3. I am working at Play It Again Sports here in town! I sell sporting equipment all day and go home smelling like rubber. I am learning a lot about sports. It's a fun job. I have the best bosses. I got really lucky. I work Tuesdays-Thursdays 12-8. It is the perfect job. Derek works Mondays-Thursdays so we have three-day weekends together!

4. So far this summer we have had lots of bbq's (Derek is awesome at grilling), we took a vacation to Las Vegas/Mesa/Farmington, we went camping, we went to the drive-in, we go on lots of dates, we work out every day, we are eating healthy, we watch lots of movies, we are reading lots of books (a current favorite of ours is Dean Koontz - Odd Thomas series) and more! We are having a really good time.

5. We are taking an online class together (Teachings of the Living Prophets) so that takes up some time. Derek is taking another class online, and English class which has kept him pretty busy. It is awesome for us to be able to learn about the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve together.

6. It was pretty chilly for the first part of the summer up here but it finally warmed up! Now it is almost too warm haha! Last week the air conditioning was broken in the store that I work in! It was like sitting in an oven. It was sooooo hot! But no worries, it's fixed how.

7. Derek and I have been watching Boy Meets World through Netflix which has been lots of fun! It brings back lots of memories of my childhood!

8. At this point in school - I am student teaching starting August 29th here in Idaho Falls! This means that I will graduate in December!! I am so excited and ready to teach! I had great preparation the last two semesters. Derek has only two semesters left and so he graduates in April! After that we will see where Heavenly Father needs us to go! Derek takes the GRE at the end of this month which will help him get into grad-school so we will see!

This is just a quick up-date. I will follow up this post with more details and some pictures (once I find them!)

We Went to Farmington for the Weekend!

Don't be scared, we are actually really nice people... We are just awesome at baseball...
Oh yeah... I hit this one so hard, it broke though the netting on the other side and hit a car... ok, not really... I actually think I missed this one.

Hot. He is really good hat hitting.

Just before I took this, Derek was sitting in the same position as Warren with his mouth open as well.. So that was the purpose of this picture but oh well!

This is Tyler opening some of his gifts. I love how all the little kids are gathered closely around him.

This is all the men who are related to Tyler that went to the baptism, which means that we are related to about half of them..

Like I said, he is really good at golf.

Awww we are so cute :)

Eh, close enough.

Derek, going in for the put... he shoots, he scores!! Dalin, was extra talented at holding the flag ;)

We went to Farmington over the weekend to go to Derek's cousin's (Tyler) baptism. I almost couldn't go because of work but I wasn't scheduled so I got to go! I am so glad I got to because it was SO much fun. It is always really fun when we visit Derek's family. Plus, the weather was beautiful so it was a good weekend all around. The drive from Denver to Farmington is only about 350 miles but its through the mountains so it took us 7 hours! It was a beautiful drive though! We got into farmington on Thursday night and we stayed till Sunday morning. On friday, Derek, Dalin, and I went golfing! That was exciting. I am better than I thought I was but still not good. Derek was awesome at it! I am glad that Dalin came with us, he is a cool kid. It's always fun to get to know him better. I am glad that I have such good brothers/sisters-in-law!! So, we were out in the sun for a few hours... I didn't put on sunscreen, thus I got a little crispy. After golf, we went shopping with Derek's mom. That was fun! we found some great deals on clothes. That night, we went to Golden Corral for dinner and we watched a movie as a family.

The next day was the baptism! It was a great program. Tyler is so cute. He was so excited and happy to be getting baptised. Eight is such a great age! Because of the baptism Brandon and Crystal were in town as well and it was great to see them! Brandon gave a great talk on baptism and you could tell Tyler looked up to him so much. Derek and I sang a duet ("I like to look for rainbows...") together! That was the first time that Derek has sang in public and he was fantastic! It was awesome to sing with him! Derek was a witness as well. After the baptism we all went to Tammy and Rusty's (Aunt and Uncle) house for lunch and to celebrate Tyler's birthday. We socialized a bit and enjoyed each other's company. Derek has such a great family. Unfortunately Rusty fell off his roof and broke a few ribs! That was terrible. I hope that he gets better soon. Other than that it was a great day!

Derek and I went to the batting cages that night and then everyone that was there for the baptism went to the "Too"-Tah to watch a movie. Its an old theater that people can rent for a couple hours to watch a movie. So, we got to hang out with Derek's cousins a bit more. After that we went back to the house, watched another movie, and then went to bed.

Like I said before, we love to visit Derek's family. They are great people and I feel extremely lucky to have them as a part of my life.

Finally: An update on recent events...

Ok! We have arrived to present day! Derek and I are living in Denver for the summer. He is selling pest control again. We love it here! He is doing well selling, We have an awesome apartment, the community we live in is beautiful, I have a job at Aaron's Brothers Art and Framing... Life is good! We almost didn't come out but we are glad that we did. Dan and Sarah are here as well! After only a month of living here we have decided that this is a place that we would love to end up in someday. We have callings in our ward (Nursery) and we are loving life!


We found this thing at a gas station on our way to Colorado.. We had to buy it. It was the biggest hot dog we had ever seen. We were laughing so hard!! We only had a couple bites.. it was merely for the experience (and the picture).

Derek's birthday was on April 30th so we had a party at our apartment. We had a bbq with Dan and Sarah and we had cheesecake! YUM! Wyatt helped Derek blow out his candles. Derek is now 24! He is so old!

Isn't she adorable??? Nana bought her a sailor dress and she looks like a little angel!

On Mother's Day Sarah asked me to take family pictures of them! They turned out really cute. Especially when Wyatt was happy! Aren't they a cute family??

Last Sunday, Derek and I went and visited Red Rock Amphitheater! It was amazing! There are 380 steps from the bottom to the top and we climbed them all! Apparently lots of cool concerts happen here. It was totally worth it and the view from the top was INCREDIBLE!

And, this is the view! That is Denver on the left. WOW! It was amazing.

And there is us, striking a hot pose for the camera. You can see the stage down below. On May 30 there is a concert here featuring Styx, Kansas, AND Foreigner!! How cool is that?? Dang...

Tutonka... This is a cool picture with the sunset in the background... "Oh give me a home, where the Buffalo rome...."

We went to this park that overlooks a valley and the mountains beyond and we took our little grill and had hotdogs and SMORES! Mmmm.

Happy Easter! Welcome Home Shawn!

SHawn served his mission in New Jersey and my parents went and picked him up. They spent a few days touring around NJ and NY. They came home on Easter! So, we went to the airport and picked them up with signs. It was so fun to see Shawn again! He is all grown up! It is crazy! So, he got home and we went back to the house where we had dinner ready! A bunch of people came over to welcome him back and we had a big barbeque. It was great! After everyone left the Easter Bunny came and hid all out baskets in the backyard. We had an easter egg hunt which turned pretty violent toward the end... just kidding! Haha but our Easter Egg hunts are pretty extreme sometimes.

Uncle Chip and Aunt Kris came up with Grandma and Grandpa Davis! It was good to see them.

The Easter Hunt damage..

This is probably my favorite picture. Derek and Shawn were after the same egg but shawn got there first. Derek was a little sad.. haha you can see Shawn laughing in the background.

Love.

Like I said, the Easter Bunny goes to extremes. Derek had to climb the tree to get his basket. You can see it at the top of the picture. Last year, my dad, I mean, the easter bunny... buried Dan's basket so that all you could see was a sliver of the plastic covering.

INTRODUCING: Bella Farrer! This is Dan and Sarah's second beautiful child!! She is such a peach!

Mine was in a tree as well, although not as high as Derek's was.

Friends, School, Valentines... In a nutshell - LIFE!

Came flew down to Utah for the weekend to go wedding dress shopping, so of course, I drove down to be with her. It was an AWESOME weekend. It just girls. Tammy's sisters, mom and I. So we went shopping and we giggled a lot. Tammy and I got to go on a date which was wonderful. She is getting married in June and I get to be up there with her!

This is when Wyatt accidentally threw a paint can down the stairs at my parents house... It was so funny in a horrifying way. He followed it down the stairs and so there are little foot prints. He also put his hands in it, so there are permenant hand prints on the carpet by the TV. My parents wanted new carpet anyway.. this gave them the opportunity to justify spending the money.

THis is the scooter that we bought at an auction... We did not intend on buying it, but apparently, when you raise the paddle... you have to buy things... that is a lesson that I learned from that experience. This picture was taken the night that we sold that scooter. I really wanted to keep it but it doesn't make any sense to own one when you can only ride it in the winter.

For Valentines Day, Derek and I drove down to SLC to go to Tucano's Brazillian Grill. That is our Valentine's tradition. This was the fourth time we have been together including the time we ate there for our wedding dinner. They have the best food!! When we got back, Derek surprised me with a bouquet of 50 mini roses. I didn't realize how much I love those flowers until I had them. It was a gorgeous bouquet. I made Derek a giant sugar cookie heart and I attempted to write everything I love about him on it but I wrote too big... Oh well! It's the though that counts.

I am an Elementary Ed major at school and last semester I had the opportunity to be in a 3rd grade class. It was the best experience I have ever had. Our teacher let us teach almost everytime we were there so we got a ton of experience. My partner Lindsay was awesome. We got to teach a unit on Reader's Theater. This picture was taken after the performances at the end. All the kids were so cute. It made my conviction to become a teacher even stronger.

Brandon and Christine Potter are our really good friends up at school. Whenever we go on a double date with them, we have a blast. Christine and I were roomates my first year at school and her and Brandon had been friends then even before they started dating and so we have known them for a long time. We are so comfortable around them... we are lucky to have friends like them! The top picture is when we made cookie monster's at our apartment... WhenI say monster, I mean monster. I made an entire batch of cookies, split it in half and they ate one half and we ate another. I have never eaten more cookies and ice cream in one sitting... We were sosick afterwards. The picture below that one is at my parents house in the back yard when we got together and roasted hotdogs and made smores. That was awesome. Mmm. We made them with good chocolate so it was even better.

And this picture is just of our main room in our apartment. It was taken from the kitchen. It was a good apartment. We were sad to move from it.

Caribbean Cruising!

Every night we had a towel animal on our bed. They were all so cute!

This was game night with Homeshield. We have a panoramic feature on our camera so this is kinda a result of that but it didn't work well...

Derek got a plaque because he has been in the company for two years

This is us the last night. We got every dessert... don't worry, we shared.

This is the main lobby of our cruise ship. Pretty huh?

THis is the night we watched the cowboys play.

Our ship, the Carnival Destiny.

Our ship is on the left. I thought this was a cool view of the dock.

HAHAHA!! He looks like a little boy!

Derek sacrificing me to sun god with an umbrella... It was a wet day.

Derek using his tracking skills. We were following the foot prints of some unknown Myan mummy...

We stopped off at this beach on our way to the ruins. It was windy but it was lovely!

Us in the back of the lovely jeep we rented. Brrr.

Ummm.... I couldn't help it. This was at the pier in Cozumel

We did this a lot.

Dinner with the captain! Don't we look good! By the way, we didn't really eat dinner with him, that's just what the formal dinner is called.

Virgin strawberry something. It was delicious. Especially the creamy stuff at the bottom.

This was a Kermitt's Key Lime Pie store, and that is Kermitt himself. Hitting on me!

There were a lot of these trees on Key West. they are the COOLEST things ever. I have never seen anything like them! I want one in my front yard

Riding the scooter around was so much fun! Although it didn't have ffot pegs and so I had to hold my legs on there. They got tired after a while.

COOL!

This is at the port of Miami right when we got on the boat!

This was our second cruise together and it couldn't have been more different than the first. We left from the Port of Miami like we did the last time but this cruise stopped in Key West, FL and Cozumel, Mexico. The destination wasn't the only thing different about our cruises. While we had good weather on our first day in Key West, it rained the rest of the time. That didn't stop us from having fun though! In Key West, we rented a scooter and drove around the entire key. It was soooooo FUN!!! The weather was perfect. we drove down the coast, we visited the southern most point in the U.S. That was weird. We saw both the tourist parts of Key West and the residential parts. I'll tell you what.. I wouldn't mind retiring there. Mmmm. We saw all the statues and the little shops lining the streets of the town. We also got the original Key Lime pie! WOW that was amazing. Mmm I swear I can still taste it. It was a beautiful day. That night we had a nice dinner with the captain. We got dressed up nice and had a really fancy dinner. It was delicious. The desserts were incredible. Of course, I would remember the desserts the best... :)

I believe it was that night that we watched the cowoys play out on the big screan on the top deck. That was so much fun!! the ship had a few ice cream machines that were always on, so that was good, we hit that up probably too much than was needed... Oh well! its a cruise! We slept well that night and woke bright and early the next morning to rough water and rain, LAME!! But, we were determined to have a good time none the less. When we got to the port in Cozumel we docked next to another large ship and walked to the tourist area where we met up with everyone in our group (Homeshield). Because it was raining we decided to rent a jeep with another couple and we got a map and started to drive around the island. It was the nastiest vehicle I have ever been in... There were no back seat seat belts so we had to hang on for dear life. My window leaked and so I was the only one in the car who got wet, which meant I was wet for the whole day... But, it was AWESOME! We stopped by a little beach to check it out. Then we made our way over to some Myan ruins that we hiked around for a couple hours. That was COOL! It was amazing to see all the ancient huts and roads and stuff.. for real, it was pretty weird to know that people actually lived there hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago.

After that, we made our way back through town (the creepy parts as well) and we found a restaurant that someone suggested that we go to. So we did. Umm... yeah, it was amazing mexican food (duh). We bought a couple souveniers and then made our way back to the ship!

The next day was called "Fun Day at Sea" because we had to make our way back to Miami and it takes a while. So we slept, and ate, and explored, and ate, and slept... There were a couple activities going on around the ship but nothing to extravagent because it was still cold and rainy. I got a little sea sick which was unfortunate but oh well! The waves were huge and that boat was rockin that is for sure. That night we had a big homeshield game party where we were in a tiny room and we played mafia with cards then another game with dice and money that i dont know the name of... It was fun. We ate some more food.. duh.. and we watched a movie on deck again (not sure which night this was but it wasn't raining) I can't remember the movie but it was good!

Basically, the cruise was incredible, despite the rain. It was a great experience! We spent the whole semester of school catching up (mentally) but it was worth it!