The Rexburg Idaho Temple

We are blessed to have a temple 10 minutes walking distance from us. Here are a few pictures we've taken over the last year of this sacred building.

"That the work of the gathering together of my saints may continue, that I may build them up unto my name upon holy places; for the time of harvest is come, and my word must needs be fulfilled. Therefore, I must gather together my people, according to the wheat and the tares, that the wheat may be secured in the garners to possess eternal life, and be crowned with celestial glory, when I shall come in the kingdom of my Father to reward every man according as his work shall be." D&C 101:64-65

Christmas in November?!

So mom came into town about 3 weeks ago and with her she brought all these christmas decorations that my Aunt Sandy gave Mary and I. Because our apartment is so small we had them sitting out in plain view ever since and they have been whispering to us every time we saw them telling us to put them up! So we justified putting them up two weeks before the official "after thanksgiving so it's ok to put up the decorations" date because we figured we would only be able to enjoy them for two weeks before we went back down to Utah for X-mas break :)

Before...

After!

I talked with Dad while writing this post and he mentioned how he was feeling "jolly" this year and wanted to decorate early on the 22nd... the 22nd of December! I realized that our over-compensation with decorating may be caused by Dad making us wait so long every year! Merry early Christmas!

Family Matters

We've had a great and busy week. Last weekend we got to go down and see our new little nephew John Harold Alley Jr. He has a few features of his dad, most notably his upper lip which sticks out like John's did.

John Harold Alley Jr.

It was great seeing the family also. Julie and Steve were in town so we were with them the whole time. Saturday we had the whole family together so we went to the park and played tennis and volleyball and had a little picnic.

The Fam at the park

It was great being home also because mom let me raid the food storage! I don't think she quite understands how much that means to us poor married college students. We had an eventful drive home also as my gas gauge decided to get stuck at 2 bars and thus running out of gas about 15 minutes outside of Idaho Falls. Luckily my cousin Kariessa lives in IF and she sent her husband out to rescue us and bring gas. We were so grateful they came out because we don't what else we would have done without them.

We finished our decorations up for Halloween for FHE. We carved some pumpkins and decorated the outside of the apartment. I'll let the pictures explain...

The outside of the Apt. Our theme was the "Great Pumpkin"

The pumpkin eating the scarecrow... haha!

We enjoyed more family time over the weekend too. Mary's sister Liz came up and got away from BYU life and stayed for a few days. We all went to the African Childrens Choir performance on saturday night which was fun and touching. One girl shared a story of how she walked 6 miles every day to go to school! I thought of how sometimes Im lazy and drive to the library which is about a 10 minute walk... It put things in perspective. We also got to have dinner with Kariessa and Jared and his family. We had tried to invite them to have dinner at our place to thank them for rescuing us but it ended being dinner at the Lamphs! It has been a joy being able to be with our family this last week.

Date Night!

Friday night was date night and we had a fun time making a wreath and putting up some fall decorations in our little apartment. I told a single friend in one of my classes what we had planned because I was so excited on friday, but instead of having the same excitement that I had my friend made fun of me! Aparently making wreaths for the apartment is boring for singles. Personally though I loved it!

Us Starting on our Wreath

Mary's Fine Sign

The Finished Product!

It was a fun weekend also. Mom and Anna came up for Mothers Weekend and we enjoyed spending time with them. They all got to come to my work and see me lead Vision Conference. After we went to a Mother/Son banquet and then to an International Dance show. It was a great weekend! Oh and it snowed which I was very happy about :)

The Alley Blog!

Since we were married a little over 4 weeks ago there has been a little voice in the back of my head... It kept saying things like, "That homework can wait... Go blog." and "Why havn't you started your blog yet?" Actually it was two voices. That of Jenna Jensen and Ty Jensen. At the luncheon after our wedding they very nicely suggested we start a blog so we could keep up... Well something to that effect, my mind was elsewhere at the time. So to keep our word here is our first blog!

I'm not sure what sort of things we are suppose to write about, or what the blog norms are, so if I say something innapropriate please tell me!

I guess I should start with what's going on in our life now. Mary and I were married on the 29th of August in the Bountiful, Temple(we don't have the wedding pictures just yet). After this hard summer it was a blessing to see all my family again on different terms and especially to be married to my Mary. We had a wonderful honeymoon in Hawaii, and got to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center, kayaking, snorkeling, visit Pearl Harbor, amongts other things.

Because of the timing of the wedding and honeymoon being so close to school we had a hectic time getting back. We had a redeye flight that left at 8 p.m. friday and after a layover in LA arrived in SLC at 11 a.m. We got home and immediately had to pack up to move into our new apartment here in Rexburg so that we could start school that monday! To make matters worse, we realized in Utah that we had left the camera Julie and Steve let us borrow in the LA airport! We felt and feel horrible :( With the help of mom and dad we made the drive up to good ol' Rexburg and moved into our first apartment!

School has started now and we are loving married life! I thought I knew how to be the perfect husband until we disagreed about which drawer the oven mits should go in! So now I am re-learning how to really communicate and what it means to give and take. We are in a great ward. Mary was called to be ward chorister and I was called to play flag football(for now). Mary is taking 18 credits and will graduate next semester and I'm taking 14 and working part-time. Life couldn't be better :)