Proud to be a Kauffman

This has been a frequent conversation over the last almost-year:
Dallin: "Whit, are you proud to be a Kauffman?"
Me: "Yes, of course I am"
Dallin: "Then change your email."

So it is time for a change...new email and new blog address so that Dallin can feel included and be reassured that I am proud to be a Kauffman.

New Blog: whitanddal.blogspot.com
New Email: whitliekauffman@gmail.com

There you go, Dal.

The Long-Awaited Sleepover

A few weekends ago was the long-awaited Hadlee sleepover.  She turned 5 and figured she was plenty old enough to have a sleepover at Whitlie and Dallin's for her birthday, just like her older sister Shalee had.  I'm so glad that we are such a reward.  It was super fun to have her over and we did lots of fun things like...being doctored, having our hair done, playing ponies, and shopping for a new baby doll (she named him Bumpy...). She wanted to sleep in the cedar chest because she fit just perfectly, I told her she couldn't since I was worried that the lid would fall on her in the middle of the night.  She laid in there for quite a while though and it did look pretty comfy.  

She is such a funny girl and says outrageous things all the time.  I love hanging out with her just so I can hear what she has to say next. It was so fun to have little people at our house.  I hope that me, Hadlee and Shalee will always be best friends.

A Little Bit of Paradise...along with a few blisters

As soon as we finished finals we headed down to Havasupai.  I had been anticipating this trip for months and using it as a motivator to get me through those last few tough weeks of finals.  The trip really was amazing, a beautiful place with lots of my favorite people.  Sam and Reagan planned the trip and invited Dal and I.  Sam's brother Fred, Reagan's sister Bryan and my sister McKell came as well.  In order to truly have a siblings trip we were only missing Taylor.  Clint and Caden were part of the party too.  We got a little lost and had to drive around about a third of the Grand Canyon, but when we finally arrived at 1:30 in the morning, after an 11 hour drive, we were ready to start hiking in :).
After hiking for a couple hours we were pretty tired so we camped on the trail under a big rock overhang.  It was a little cold...ok really cold...and I woke up to every hiker that passed but I was so glad to be out of the suburban and lying down that it didn't even matter.

The next morning we got into the Indian village.  I couldn't wait to take my pack off :) But, after registering we still had another two miles to hike down into the campground.  But from there we could see the river and we got our first view of this: 

We spent the next two days at the bottom of the grand canyon, swimming and playing in the beautiful blue green water, relaxing and playing games.  Oh, and eating dehydrated food (that part actually wasn't even that bad).  On the second day we went on an awesome hike down the river where we played in smaller waterfalls all along the way.  I loved every minute.  

Dallin fell in love with all of the frogs and the card game "scum" (which we played with princess cards). We also had fun exploring some of the smaller canyons and caves up in the rock walls of the canyons.  We didn't want to leave, especially because that meant an 11 mile hike back up out of the canyon with some pretty mean switchbacks.  After getting to the top we collectively decided it was one of the hardest things we had ever done.  And that's why we came home with blisters.

Finished.

I know it's been a while since Dal and I finished the school year, and I feel like I've been taking a break from everything ever since, but I decided it definitely deserves a post.  This school year was definitely tough, for both of us.  I'd say that our crazy school schedules has been the only really hard thing about our first year of marriage.  We both made it though!  Hopefully my schooling will never be as difficult again, and, while I can't say the same for Dallin, he is that much closer to graduating :).  He's not even taking a break this summer though, he's got three classes right now and will take another later in the summer.  He amazes me with all he can accomplish while working so much.  Even though Dal still has classes, summer has already proven to be so great.

Goodbye you cruel, intimidating first year of law school--I never want to see you again!

Last Day

I just finished my last class of my first year.  It does feel nice to be done with classes, but I sure don't feel quite the same relief I've felt in previous years because I've still got 4 crazy finals to go.  Only a few more weeks and I'll really be done :).

A Quick Trip to Dixie

A couple weekends ago we took a quick trip to St. George for the wedding of one of Dallin's mission buddies.  It was a quick trip, but it was great, mostly because I didn't go to school on Thursday or Friday.  Dallin had spring break so we decided to at least stay a couple days.  We headed down on Thursday and went hiking.  I took Dallin out to the house where my grandma lived and we hiked around behind her house.  I love that place, it has so many memories of hiking with grandpa Tom and hearing all his crazy stories and then coming home to grandma and her country music and hummingbirds. It was way fun to be there and it was beautiful. 

As we were hiking I told Dallin that I vaguely recalled that there were Indian Ruins somewhere...I forgot how much Dallin loves Indians.  We ended up hiking around for almost three hours searching for them.  He kept saying "It's ok if we can't find them, but it would be way cool if we could."  Well finally we did and he thought they were pretty exciting, even though they weren't the most spectacular ruins ever.

I love St. George, and I think it is so beautiful in the spring.  The blossoms were out and it was sunny and nice.  Here are a couple more pictures of the trip and the wedding, which was wonderful.  Congrats Andrew and Jessilyn!



Mission buddies outside the temple.  I loved meeting this senior couple, they were awesome and so much fun!

 MTC group...

And blossoms!

Sleepover with Shalee

Every year since I moved away from home Shalee and I have had a tradition of having a sleepover on her birthday weekend (or close to it).  Kell has come every year too.  I love it and look forward to it every year!  Shalee is the sweetest girl you'll ever meet with a compliment for everyone and a way of making everything fun.  We had a blast this year.  We picked her up in Provo, went home and had grilled cheese sandwiches (the girl is obsessed with cheese...), went shopping and bought her some new earrings and a cute shirt and then got some ice cream (Dallin came to the ice cream part :).   I can't wait til next year...

Oh, and Hadlee decided that this year she is also old enough to have a sleepover on her birthday.  She'll be turning 5 in May...and I'm sure there will be some great stories when it comes time for that sleepover.

Grateful

I am truly grateful that my nose does not normally look (or feel) as big as it does right now after getting elbowed in an intramural basketball game.  That's all.

(no pictures were included in this post for good reason)

Here and There

Here are just a few pictures of the last couple weeks: 

 

Dallin thinks he's still Ukrainian.  Actually, now it's a mix of Russian and Ukrainian.  He decided to start a Russian club at UVU and dressed up one day to recruit members.  He speaks Russian pretty often, or reads out loud in Ukrainian.  Oh and he's been watching documentaries in Russian.  So, all of this has led to me having dreams in Russian (or at least my own version of Russian) which I don't understand when I wake up. He says he dreams in Russian or Ukrainian all the time too, but that's a little more normal...

Dallin was really sick on Valentine's day last week, so we didn't do too much.  I had a really good dinner and dessert planned but that just didn't work out...so we had a make up Valentine's day last weekend, and it was great!  Best Valentine's day ever, for sure.

And, sadly, here's what we look like on a typical night when we get home from school / work no earlier than 7:30, quite often as late as 10:30.  Love the student life! :). We're definitely busy and very often tired, but life is great!

The "I Love You" Squash

When we had been married for about a month, and I was still painting, Dallin made me lunches to take with me almost everyday.  One day I opened up my bag to find a yellow crookneck squash, with "I Love You" carved into it.  All the ladies I worked with loved it and were convinced that I had the best husband ever (without me even telling them that I did).  Dallin still makes our lunches pretty often when I'm running late in the morning.  The other day I found an acorn squash with the same message carved into it in the bottom of my lunch. I had been super busy that day and didn't even find it until my classes were over at 4:00.  It made me so happy.  I have the best husband ever.  No question.  

 

Rainy Mornings

Waking up to rainy mornings like today always make me miss London.  I used to hate the rain, now it brings back so many good memories that it always makes me really happy. I want to go back.  Someday.

 

Why I Love Intramurals

All day I sit, and read, and read, and read, and sit. And read, and sit.  Sadly, this is not an exaggeration.  Occasionally I sit and read blogs and the newspaper, when I can't take case books any more.  And then, once a week I stop sitting and I play basketball.  And then I feel like I can think and be a normal person again without a million legal terms and case holdings floating around in my mind.  I love intramurals...my only regret is that I don't have time to play inner tube water polo AND basketball.  I have a game tonight which means that later I'll feel like a normal person again. I can't wait.

Happy Hump Day!

Today I got my first semester grades. It's been termed hump day throughout the law school. One of my professors even brought camel shaped sugar cookies in celebration of the occasion.  Overall I felt really good about my grades but more than anything it was just proof to myself that I can really do this whole law school thing and live through the process.  Hooray for hump day and hooray for the first semester being OVER!

Highlights

A few of the highlights of our Christmas Break:

Christmas Eve at Kauffman's with lots of fun little (and big :) people, yummy food and talking to Taylor on Christmas Day.

 

Sleepover at Murdoch's.  Staying up til 1:30 talking and "rapping" with Lance and McKell.  New pajamas and opening presents. 

Shotgun shooting with the brothers.  It was so freezing cold that the first time I shot I thought the trigger ripped my finger off.  Although not pictured I may, or may not have, won Annie Oakley :)

Hiking to the wishing tree.  Love that place.

Teaching Dallin how to ski. Actually, as you can see, we started out a little smaller with snow blades.  He was awesome and it was so fun to be up there with him and my family. 

Hanging out with people like Marissa (and E-pants).  We got to see lots of friends.  All my roommates and hubbies came over one night and the next night we had a big group of high school buddies over.

Christmas break was wonderful.  We loved celebrating with family, seeing friends again and not worrying about anything but how much fun we were going to have the next day.  Now it's back to the 10 hour a day school grind, but we've done it once so that means we can do it again right?  We really are excited for a new semester, a change in classes and the beginning of our first full year together. :)

p.s. I still haven't taken any Christmas stuff down...guess I should have thought about that before I didn't have any time once again...