Beautiful Bountiful Basket!

Isn't it beautiful?

We picked it up just this morning. We heard about these Bountiful Baskets and really wanted to try them out! So I searched the Bountiful Baskets website and ordered my own basket (a "contribution" of only $15)! I chose the site I wanted to pick my produce up at and we picked it up on the designated day and time, 9:45 AM today.

We are so excited to use this produce in as simple a form as possible. Most may not know, but I need to lose quite a bit of weight before it is safe for us to get pregnant, so eating healthy fruits and veggies will hopefully get us set on that track more firmly. Drew and I are both enthusiastic about our new discovery!

1 head Romaine lettuce
7 cobs sweet corn
7 pickling cucumbers
2 bags carrots
1 eggplant
4 Roma tomatoes

8 pears
1 package strawberries
1 cantaloupe
1 LARGE bag seedless red grapes
9 bananas
7 "pluots" (plum/apricot hybrid)

YUM! Now maybe you can help us think of what to do with a lot of this...

We also went to the farmers' market last Friday and still have a half-full bag of fresh green beans, 1/4 lb cherries, 2 large zucchini, and our bishop needed to get rid of lots of cabbage, so we have a very VERY large head of cabbage too. We will have some of this gone due to Dello going in on this basket with us... so technically, half of this is hers. But we'll still be left with a lot! Help! We need ideas and I have yet to figure out how to use the new RecipeZaar website, which is now Food.com...

Wish us luck! :)

Work, Callings, and New Friends!

We love our jobs!!

Excellence In Everyone is one of the best places we have ever worked. Though the pay is not ideal, the work is more fantastic than we could ever have hoped for! The hours are good, our co-workers are great, and our clients (a handful of the sweetest disabled people you will ever meet) make every bit of it worth our while! Unfortunately, once the middle school starts up again, I don't think I'll be able to continue on at Excellence. The center is only open until 6pm weekdays and I will already be working at the school until 3:30pm. It takes us 15 minutes to drive to Excellence on the highway and we would be paying more money in gas than I would be making. Drew, on the other hand, will be able to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays (while taking 14 credits of classes)! My hero. : )

Drew has just been called as the 67th Ward Clerk and will be spending more time at church on Sundays and Tuesdays than he used to as an Assistant Clerk. It will be very busy, but very rewarding. We are already seeing the blessings of serving in church callings in our ward. I will continue serving as the 1st counselor in the Primary Presidency. I love it! Being a student (married) ward, every semester brings new families and new Primary children. We are looking forward to making new little friends!

Lately we have been spending more time with the Kumfermans. The Kumfermans are my cousin's fiancee's family (my cousin, Tyler Ackley, is marrying Krista Kumferman). The first time we spent time with them was Independence Day weekend, and again last weekend for their youngest daughter's birthday (both times were when Ty and Krista came up from Utah to visit). Karen and Ed are so welcoming that we feel as though we have found some long-lost family members. We are so happy to say that we have made new friends!

Speaking of friends... I have some dear family friends who are moving to the Rexburg area soon! Jason and Lynette Williams and their family will be moving here so Jason can teach Nursing at BYU-Idaho! I am so excited for the Williams' to come here! "Aunt Lynette" and "Uncle Jay" were such a huge help to my parents when Scott and Nathan were born in 1998. They treated us like family and would stay the night with us when my dad was out of town and my mom had to work night shift. They now have a family of their own, and I am excited that their oldest, Megan, will be coming to the middle school where I work! We look forward to the Williams' arrival!

Lots of changes! We welcome change with open arms. (Wow, I really sound like a prepared-for-anything Air Force wife!)

Love you all! Don't hesitate to leave comments (a.k.a. "love notes"). ; )

Tyler and Cortney are Newlyweds!

Drew and I were delighted when we got our invitation to Cortney and Tyler's wedding in the mail! We knew we'd be there, even if it meant driving down to Bountiful for a few hours... We just love them!

We decided against a few hour visit and arranged for us to stay with my sister, Kalin, at her home off of Utah Lake for the weekend. The wedding was on Friday, July 16th, so we headed out of Rexburg on Thursday night. 50 miles out of town, Drew told me that he didn't know where his temple recommend was. Oops! So we drove back home, found it in the pair of pants he wore to the temple the week before, and had a feeling that we should stay home that night instead of driving 4 hours to Utah.

After a great night's sleep, we headed off to Bountiful (only 3 hours from Rexburg) for a wedding!

The sealer had such wonderful things to say. He was very mindful of the fact that Cortney and Tyler's fathers were close to them, and gave them a chance to speak to the couple. It was so sweet.

After the sealing and pictures, we were invited to a luncheon in honor of the newlyweds, held by the family of one of Tyler's mission companions. It was awesome!
I caught the sweethearts dancing to some music:

Congratulations, Tyler and Cortney! We love you!

(We found out that the couple will be living not even 2 miles from us once school starts in the fall and we will be able to hang out with them whenever we're able! So excited!)

It's been awhile...

Okay, so it's been, like, two months. But who's counting?

Drew and I are now EMPLOYED! And have been since June 1st! We work at a center for the developmentally disabled in St. Anthony (just a 15 min drive from here). Essentially, we're doing in the community what I do in the school district. We don't do anything academic, though. It's strictly "life skills" and helping them with social skills and such. It's the best!

Excellence In Everyone, our new employer, is the best job I have ever worked at! Drew agrees. We wake up every day looking forward to work; thinking about new things we can do with our clients and how we can strengthen our friendships with these amazing people. Everyone is so happy there and we love the feeling we come home with every day! Drew said last week that it is the only job he has felt good about going to every single time (we all know there are normally days that we don't want to go to work - but that is not the case with this one)!

It truly is a blessing that we stumbled across this job and it is even more a blessing that we work in the same place. Thanks to our friend, George, who worked at Excellence previously and called ahead for us, we now have the best jobs we have ever had!

So many great things in our lives!

We celebrated Drew's 24th birthday last weekend! We went to the temple, to the library, and even saw Toy Story 3 (all on the Saturday before his b'day)!! Toy Story 3 was such a great movie! It was a perfect ending for the Buzz and Woody story.

On Sunday, Drew's birthday, we spent quite a bit of time at church; we went to David's ward to see Dello speak in church after our already long day of meetings and church services. That night we had a big crowd over to our place for cake and games! It was so much fun!

(The picture shows what David got Drew at the DI for his birthday gifts: a World's Greatest Dad t-shirt, a Guinness World Records 2003 book, a mug that asks "is your attitude worth catching?", a Winger's gift card, The Rainmaker book, and NBA Jam game for the computer)

By request, I made homemade macaroni and cheese for Drew's birthday dinner! It was my first time and it actually turned out pretty good! :-)

There should be another post pretty soon about my outlook on the movie Eclipse! I'm going to see it tonight with my client-turned-friend, Wendie, and I am really excited! I've heard nothing but wonderful things about it since it came out late Tuesday night. Maybe I'll even take some pictures of my fun with Wendie! We'll see.

Love you all!

Dirk and Stef SEALED FOR ETERNITY!

It's a wonderful thing when I can say something like this about my siblings! Dirk and Stefanie Silver were sealed for time and all eternity in the Palmyra, New York LDS Temple on Thursday, May 6, 2010! They are, currently, on a much needed honeymoon in Hawaii. They celebrated their 2 year anniversary on March 10, and were never able to go on a honeymoon when they were first married.

We are so happy for them!!