Grateful for...

We were so blessed to have a chance to see family over Thanksgiving! What a great trip. 17 hours in a car and Justin still loves me. :) I'm grateful for my best friend who I don't get tired of after a 17 hour car ride.

This is the first time in our marriage when we've made a turkey. It was fun....

This is what the drive through Nebraska feels like.

Our favorite tree in Columbia...the magic tree!!

The way J passed much of the time--nerf gun fight!

We were so grateful for the chance to spend the holiday with family. Family is definitely the most important in our lives and we know that we owe so much to you. Thank you for supporting us and being there for us. We couldn't have done this without you!

Playing catch-up

Let's be honest. We lead boring lives. So if you'd like to hear about the same old, read on... :) School is in full swing for Justin. It's probably been the craziest time of his program and possibly his entire schooling. On top of that, he has been volunteering at a local hospital for cancer patients and volunteering with his program by providing therapy for patients who can't afford health insurance. When he isn't doing any of those things, he's also working for a local clinic. In his work capacity, he mostly covers the athletics for a local college as their athletic trainer. It's been pretty busy since volleyball and basketball are both happening, so he often goes from one straight to the other. As for me? I work. And have Young Women's on Wednesday. That is all.

I think I told dad, mom and Rachel about this. This is the largest bruise I've ever gotten and came as a result of unintentionally tipping a canoe in a shallow river lined with boulders. (Mind the big rocks!)

Our summer Joplin volunteer trip. I don't think I've posted pics or videos of this yet, but I may have to. It was a humbling and eye-opening experience. Here we are with our partners in crime picking up debris at a local school.

Of course, the summer would not have been complete without a baseball game. Fortunately for us, the Sox came to KC. :)

This year was the 100th anniversary of homecoming at Mizzou. Every year, Greek town builds these huge sets and puts on skits the night before the homecoming game. It's pretty amazing to see the work that goes into it. We spent a few hours wandering around campus to see a few of the skits this year.

Another incredible set.

Seriously, this poor man is exhausted. Usually if I'm baking something sweet and he's asleep on the couch, I'll take a spoonful of whatever I'm making and put it in his mouth. He always wakes up. I did this with some brownie batter that I was making a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, he didn't even move. I was laughing so hard that I dribbled brownie batter in funky shapes around his mouth and on his shirt.

For my birthday dinner, Justin made me delicious spinach stuffed shells and yellow cake with chocolate frosting. (YUM!) After we ate, he got all suspicious and suggested that we take a walk. I went with it, and when we got back home, I was very shocked to find a kitchen full of screaming people. It was a group of friends that J had invited over without my knowing. It was certainly a great surprise. We all then carved pumpkins and ate some cake and ice cream. That Justin is quite the sneak, I've come to find. I had no idea that he invited anyone over or that he was hiding two large pumpkins in our house to be carved. It was a great way to celebrate.

Haaaaaapyyyyyy Biiiiiirthdayyyyy to meeeeee! I cut the cake before we sang...ha ha. Thus the missing pieces.

The Great Furniture Restoration of 2011

Since returning from visiting family at Andrew's wedding (Hooray!!) we've basically re-done most of our furniture. Ok, clarification: Justin re-did our furniture pretty much all by his lonesome because I was at work (totally lame, but I am the sugar-momma after all). Anyway, he was a hard-at-work man during probably the worst heat in the history of Missouri. It would, of course be Murphy's law that we had heat indices (indexes? So what's the plural form of octopus?) of the summer. It was usually about 110 degrees and may have gotten up to 112. UGH! Poor J.

Anyway, we are soooo happy with how this turned out. Here are the pics showing the fruit of our (his) labor!

We first painted this an off-white color, then went over it a couple of times with oak colored wood stain. Then just covered it with a protective clear coat. I LOVE the way it turned out.

Putting some stain on the coffee table. Justin got it all ready for me and then let me stain it.

Wax on, wax off.

Voila! Kind of hard to see with the glare, but this is what it looks like now.

And the table! Curse those beveled legs!

Good, better, best???

And the finished product!

Hola mi familia y amigos! I'm following the trend of only blogging once every few months I guess, since it has been a while since my last post. I've got to figure out a way to do better. Maybe by the time I figure that out we'll be done with school and back in Utah. Oh well!

Not too much new in the Longhurst fam. Justin is officially finished with his first year of PT school! That is really exciting. He's currently doing a clinical rotation for the next few weeks at an assisted living center here in Columbia. He's enjoying it and is glad to have a little break from school I think.

We are keeping busy though, with a move coming up! We're excited to be moving to a very nice apartment complex within walking distance of my work! (HOORAY!) Plus, we have some close friends from the ward who are moving right across from us! I know, I know, you're all thinking that you should have warned them first. Well you're too late! :)

Speaking of work, I have to thank all of my family for their assistance in helping me secure a new position! My previous position was a temporary one and this new position will allow me to stay indefinitely! It will be a challenge, but I'm looking forward to it. (That which doesn't kill you...right?) Anyway, I'll be doing some traveling with this position too. It's a bummer to be away from home, but it will only be a night or two every few months or so probably. On the bright side, I will get to see lots of the great Show Me state. I'll be sure to take some pictures.

I'll also be working out of the Jeff City (the name for Jefferson City, according to Missouri natives and residents) office when the legislature is in session-about January through May. The drive to Jeff is really beautiful and only about 30 minutes.

Neither one of us can believe that we're coming up on a year in Columbia. Minus the fact that we're far from family, we absolutely love it here. Missouri is a beautiful state to begin with, then there are great people which make it even better. We definitely feel like we were lead here for a reason and we are blessed to be here. We do have some pictures of our recent adventures. More to follow (hopefully sooner than later). We send our love to all our family and friends!

Pappy's in St. Louis. This place was featured on Man vs. Food on the travel channel (Great show)! We went with some friends a couple of months back. The BBQ was delicious! Definitely amazing food. And (as you can see) amazing ambiance.

Since the restaurant is not far from Busch stadium (where the Cardinals play) this little piggy is all decked out in some awesome beads. (I don't think this little piggy went to the market).

Some of our buddies from the ward. We were watching an awesome thunderstorm from the safety of the garage. I popped some popcorn and we ended up having a seed spitting contest when the storm ended too quickly.

More fun and games with friends from the ward.

A temple trip!

This was a trip to Jefferson City to a dairy. Their banana splits are supposed to be amazing. And they are. The only problem was that they wouldn't put it in a normal dish since we got there 15 minutes before they closed. Alas, it was still good. Since I'll be working out of our office in Jeff City while the legislature is in session, I may have to head over for lunch sometime. Hmmm...this could be a very bad thing.

On your way to Jeff, there's a nice little restaurant referred to as the "Claysville Store." Claysville is a tiny little town hidden among the trees on the banks of the Missouri river. If you blink while passing it, you'd probably miss it. Anyway, our bishop and his wife told us we needed to try it, so we all went. It was good, down-home country cooking. They had fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, mashed taters, applesauce and some amazing peach cobbler. The setting was so funny though.... you get off the highway and take a small road for a couple of miles. There are dogs are wandering on the porch, hoping for a tasty morsel. It's a family owned restaurant which started because the daughters set up a lemonade stand along the MKT trail (which winds all over the state). Thirsty bikers and walkers would stop for a drink and the family decided to open a restaurant when the lemonade stand apparently was successful.

Anyway, it's been in business now for 9 years and is still family owned. The chef (the father) came out of the kitchen during our meal and said hello to some of the customers. Just a good southern style place to eat.

But not much to look at! :)

Life is good!

Life is very good. The Packers are the champions of the world! Also, the snow in Missouri has melted! We are enjoying that very much. We've actually had 60 degree weather most of the week. I can't wait to get out of the house. We have a ton of nature trails in Columbia and we're excited to go on mid-west "hikes" this spring. (I don't know if it could be called a hike if it's not in the mountains. In fact, there aren't really any hills in our area so you could say "a vigorous stroll" Hmmm....)

Justin is still working hard at school. They are certainly keeping him busy. When he's not in class, he's usually finding free t-shirts. Since we've arrived, he's up to about 14 or 15 free shirts, not to mention water bottles, pizza cutters, bottle openers and free food. I think the plan after graduation is to make a quilt from all of his free shirts. The rate he's been finding them lately would entail that it will be a very large quilt!

One of the days we were snowed in, it had been about -25 overnight. I woke up and went to plug something in and found FROST on the outlet of one of the perimeter walls of the house. You can't see it too clearly here but I was shocked. Who would have heard of such a thing? That's what happens when they decide to go cheap (or non-existent) on the insulation.

This was our cul-de-sac. It's difficult to see it in this picture, but after the huge snow, the plow only plowed one strip in the middle of the road and then left. Each house had to dig out to that strip. And since no one in their right mind would want to dig any more than they have to, each house dug only a small path to the road. It looked like a little maze at the end of the street. You can't see our trail or house in this picture but it was kind of difficult to navigate sometimes.

SUPERBOWL! I attempted to make a cheese head out of a mattress pad. I accidentally made it 4 sizes too large. Here we have Abbie, James, Sheri, Rob and Loni. They are all awesome.

James tried to eat my cheese! Abbie was impartial to the two teams before the game but since I love love love love Green Bay, she made a shirt with a "G" and painted her face with stripes of green and yellow. It was hilarious.

Our sad attempt at a Superbowl cake. It was more difficult than it looked!

We hope life is good for our loved ones. Our lives are better because of each of you.

Brrr!

Here are some updated pics from the 20 or so inches we got earlier this week. It took quite a while for us to dig out of our driveway. It was a crazy storm with some seriously cold wind. I think it's coming from Utah. So please stop sending all of this stuff to us. We don't want it. I think the low for the week was -4 plus a wind chill of 20 or so, making it just about -25. Thank goodness for our heater! Hope you all are staying warm!

This is our cul-de-sac. Unfortunately, when they plowed a few days later, they only plowed a single strip. Justin dug out to it so that I could get to work. Everyone around us followed suit, so it looks like a maze. There will be more pictures of it to come.

Justin shoveling. It took the two of us a couple of solid hours to dig out. What a good sport; he's still smiling!

Thank goodness the sun came out!

This isn't too much in the doorway but we were surprised by the snowdrift on our porch. Some of it had practically covered the bushes in front, so parts of the drift were a good 4-5 feet deep.

This was the view from the front when the storm started. It didn't look too bad at first...

Anyway, I'll have to post some more pictures soon. Like I said, we hope everyone is doing well and keeping warm! Let's all pray for spring. :)

Winter Wonder....what the heck?

Brrrr....hello all! We are currently bundled in our house waiting for a blizzard to pass! The weather out here this year has been interesting enough. Then yesterday, a blizzard warning was issued for most of mid-Missouri. Come to find out, a blizzard warning is a step higher than a winter storm and entails high snow, high winds for a sustained amount of time and other such fun stuff. I also heard a warning which stated: "People should not venture outside as they may become lost and disoriented." I laughed out loud at that.

Yesterday as I was leaving for work, I'd heard a warning that ice may be possible but only about one tenth of an inch. I backed out of the driveway and proceeded to put the car in first gear to pull forward. I didn't see any ice and started driving normally. It felt fine but as I was tapping my brakes around the corner, the car just kept going. Fortunately, I wasn't in any danger of hitting a car (thanks to our neighbors who always park on the street no matter what) and just slid slowly into the curb. I know, I know, very anti-climactic. It was just funny because it was my first experience with a real layer of solid ice. Even though it wasn't much it felt like driving on an ice rink.

Here are some pictures from our recent snow. It isn't much for these pictures. We're supposed to get 17-20 inches tonight though so there will be more to come! Fortunately, Justin had classes cancelled today and my work told me to go home. I don't know that we'll make it anywhere tomorrow either because they don't plow the side streets. Good excuse to stay home and make home made hash browns again! We'll keep you posted. Love you all!

This is the world's ugliest snowman. Those buttons are beer bottles. And it has a beer can on top of its head. And a beer bottle lid nose. Our neighbors are party animals.

My diligent shoveler. He was very kind to shovel for me when I left for work.

Our neighborhood, sans plowing!

This isn't the greatest shot, but I was in a moving vehicle. This was just a really pretty morning on the way to work. I drive by this house which is set on a huge plot of land. It's beautiful. It's nice to drive by in the morning when the sun is just coming up.

BEST SNOWMAN EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A CLOSE UP OF THE BEST SNOWMAN EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Although I do wish that was a number 12 on his jersey). This house is so cool. Also on my way to work. They also have a Packers mailbox. It's sweet!

We went to Wal-Mart to get the essentials (Oreos) and it was crazy! With the blizzard warning, everyone in Columbia was at Wal-Mart. Stores all over were out of milk, eggs, bread. This was at our local Wal-Mart where there was literally no bread left. I thought it was funny so I made Justin pose. People had 2 shopping carts each, totally overflowing with stuff. It got me thinking that I'm grateful for food storage and the commandment to stock up and be self-reliant. We still have a long way to go, of course, but we're trying to be smart about it. You never know when you'll have to battle the crazies at Wal-Mart for the last loaf of bread! :)