Washington DC has been AMAZING! There are so many things to see, so much history to learn and be reminded of, and so much fun to be had. I have not been the best at taking pictures...but here are a few showing things we've seen.

Korean War Memorial. It was beautiful, a wonderful tribute to those who served. We had a great guide who gave us a 20 minute lesson on the events surrounding the war, some points of the war itself, and how the memorial reflects those things. For example, there are 19 soldiers representing the branches of the military (some for the Navy, AirForce, etc). On the wall there are pictures etched in the outline of a mountain range and you see the reflection of those soldiers on the mountains. With the reflection, there are another 19 soldiers, 38 total, symbolic of the 38th parallel. My Grandfather served in the Korean War so this meant a lot to me.

Gavin squinting in the sun outside the Capitol Building. We have since wisened up and wear sunglasses.

Outside the Washington DC Temple.

Finals are over! Gavin and I are headed to Washington D.C. in 1 week! We are looking forward to fun adventures, new opportunities, and a great externship experience for Gavin. I'm especially excited because my parents are buying my little brother plane tickets to D.C. as a graduation gift and we are going to have a blast seeing as many sights as we can pack in to a week.

This weekend Gavin and I took a quick camping trip to Elk River. We found a great little campsite, had a fire and s'mores, and enjoyed using our tent we got for Christmas. It was a beautiful place and it was so nice to get out of town for a little bit and enjoy nature! We hiked to Elk River Falls, saw some deer, snails, weasels, possibly a chukar?, and some rednecks. :) Being married is so much fun--it's so great having someone with me who's up for any adventure at any time.


A scripture that we read earlier this week has been on my mind every day and especially this weekend:


Alma 30:44

But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.

Our tent! We love it and kept finding awesome things to say about it clear down to the convenient piece of velcro on the rainfly...yes...we were very excited about our tent! :)

Gavin making breakfast. Sausage, egg, and potatoes. It was delicious! We were also very excited about the new camp stove we got last summer and just now had the chance to break it in.

Family...you all should understand the great significance of this picture. :) Cool snail huh?!

Craziest mushrooms I've ever seen with my own eyes.


Elk river reservoir. It was beautiful!

April came and went so fast, it's hard to believe it is already May! April was full of fun--we enjoyed a visit from Gavin's parents: John and Mary Lou where we had fun with a little bbq out in the wind (there was a little bit of sunshine!) and a hike around Kamiak Butte, took a quick trip to the driving range, and enjoyed listening to hand bell concert put on by one of the local Methodist congregations here. It was a quick trip but we were glad they came to see us!

Gavin celebrated his 27th birthday on April 29th. Thanks to our friends Jenny and Melissa he had a fun little pizza party to celebrate. Gavin's parents bought him a guitar case and guitar tuner and I bought him a Japanese book ,"The Narrow Road to Oku."

We have weeds taking over the outside "yard" area in the front of our apartment. I decided to utilize some sunshine we had last weekend and start cleaning it up!

I found all sorts of fun things amidst the grass and weeds: 3 foreign coins, all from different countries, and a snake! Gavin caught it:I didn't want to get too close. :)

Life is wonderful! We spent the weekend looking after our friend's 3 year old little girl, Lily. It was such a blast and I was sad to let her go! It was a good taste of what awaits me in motherhood. Friday night we were home and settled by 9 pm and this was the conversation that I had with Gavin:
T: "Man, this kind of bites. It's 9 on a Friday night and we can't go out anywhere."
G: "This is what we'd be doing anyway, so what's the difference?"

T: "That's not the point! Now I can't go out even if I wanted to."

Totally irrational really, but funny nonetheless. I have an even greater respect for the sacrifice that mother's make. :) I also know that families are a gift from God and are the greatest source of true happiness in this life time.

In other news, we're headed to Boise for school next year. University of Idaho Law School is doing a satellite campus at BSU and we're going to go check it out! I love it here, but I'm excited for the opportunities that await us in Boise. Plus we'll be lots closer to family as my family is in Boise and Gavin's family is in Pocatello. I will definitely miss the people here, we are in an incredible ward and I LOVE my job and the people I work with.

Speaking of my job, I've had quite a few people ask me what I do, so I figured I should explain it. I'm not sure what my title would be, probably MA (medical assistant) but I'm currently working more as a doctor's "scribe", although that word is slightly archaic and makes me think of parchment paper and quills. Basically, I follow a doctor around all day long, into all the appointments, and while he talks to the patient and discusses things I'm feverishly trying to type it into the patient's chart and coordinate all the orders and prescriptions and referrals to specialists. It's actually been a great learning experience for me and I'm really grateful I've had this opportunity. By the way, Michelle, if Joey every cuts his finger again tell him he's got 8 hours to stitch it up. I asked Dr. Hall when I got to work the next day. Can be debatable I suppose, depending on where the cut is, but 8 hour limit is what a lot of doctors will say.

Gavin recently had a killer intramural basketball team. They played in the championship game but lost by a couple points. It was too bad. But it was a fun season. I had fun in the bleachers with the other wives. We even planned an end of the season basketball banquet. It was a lot of fun. I love watching Gavin play basketball--he's just as selfless on the court as he is off.

Spring break was a lot of fun. Gavin was in Boise for a Foreclosure clinic and I had to stay and work M-Th and then headed to Boise. We watched Alice in Wonderland (I loved it and would totally recommend it!) and went shooting. Here's some pictures from shooting.

Matt (brother) and Amanda (his wife). Matthew knows so much about guns and we had a blast that afternoon. Thanks for taking us!

Me and Gavin! I was looking right into the sun so I'm super squinty eyed.

My dad, he also set up this adventure

Amanda and Jenna. Spencer, you totally missed out!

And the best part of going home was OLIVIA SUE! She is my niece and ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE, just smiling and happy all the time. Gavin and I both adore her.

Happy Valentine's Day!

To update everyone since the last post, we are not going to move. No trailer adventures for us. Our rent decreased enough to save us the trouble of moving out. While a new place is always fun, I'm so grateful we don't have to move all our stuff...what a pain that is.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Gavin and I have had a fun-filled weekend. Friday night we went out to eat with some friends (Winger's has a pretty good deal right now people!) and then went to the dance the Stake was putting on and GAVIN DANCED WITH ME. For those of you who know Gavin well, you will understand what a glorious thing that was. If you were there at the dance and didn't see us and think I'm making this up, it only happened once, so if you weren't in the room for that 3-4 minute window, you missed it. :)

Saturday was sunny and beautiful so Gavin and I took advantage of the sunshine and went golfing for awhile. The course wasn't open (we got kicked off after about 2 and 1/2 hours...haha, oops.) and I'm probably the worst golfer you've ever seen in your life, but it was still a blast! Gavin was very patient explaining to me over and over the proper form (which I still can't do, but I have improved) and not being concerned that I only hit it about 1/8 as far as he did every time. It was so nice to spend the time together and to be out in the sunshine; I can't wait for summer!

One of the speakers in church today commented how her and her husband were debating what to get each other for Valentine's Day and she decided she really didn't want anything because every day was like Valentine's Day. I had to laugh because that's exactly how I've felt for the past 6 months. For one thing, Gavin makes me breakfast every morning, complete with pancakes on Saturdays. Plus I work with a bunch of women so there's ALWAYS a bunch of chocolate around. Amazing husband making breakfast + chocolate = every day is Valentine's Day. Man, I've got it good! :) But seriously, life is so awesome right now: happy in love, we both have wonderful families and great friends, and we're so blessed to know our Savior and be able to partake in the wonderful blessings of the Gospel.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

The pictures are from Lauren (Gavin's sister) and Rob's reception in December.

Where to now?

So the big news on the Giraud front is that we are going to move, probably by the end of February. To think we finally got all the pictures hung on the walls just last week...sigh. :) Since I started working our rent took a huge increase (we are in subsidized housing while Gavin is in school), so we decided we should look elsewhere. The big thing we're looking for is cheap rent and we have a couple of options. The first one is a complex where a bunch of our ward members live--it's nice, 2 bed 1 bath, good location, great neighbors...I think it would be an awesome place to live. The second place, is, yup, you guessed it, one of the trailer parks here in Moscow. There were 3 of them available and we went and checked them out today. I really liked the first one--it had a wood stove which would be AWESOME for our heating bill, new carpet, 2 bedrooms and it was decent sized, but the bathroom was...umm...less than desirable, lets just put it that way. The second one is the one we're considering most--new bathroom (major plus! The first one had a mauve toilet...), cheap rent, smaller living room but still plenty big, good sized kitchen, nicer on the outside, but the carpet was old...I really liked the new carpet of the first place. The third one was ruled out the second I walked in the door. I stepped in and was like "AH! THIS PLACE SMELLS LIKE PEE!" Which is really too bad because it had decent carpet, the nicest kitchen and a decent bathroom. But seriously...there's NO way I can get over that smell. And who knows what peed where to make it smell like that. Sick. Anyways. So those are our options. It's $50 difference between the first and second one (first is more expensive). So what do you think? The more sensible side of me says "Go live in a nice apartment for $40-80 more a month!" But there's part of me, I suppose it's my inner-white-girl-trailer-trash, that thinks the trailer park would be such a grand adventure!!! I think it would be so much fun to look back and think how ghetto we lived while we were in school. And $80 a month is kind of a lot to save. So between the trailers, what do we sacrifice? A nice bathroom with old carpet? Or bad bathroom with nice carpet? And is that carpet worth $50 more a month? Can I pee on a mauve toilet? Such tough choices. :) We'll keep you posted. For now, keep your eyes peeled for me some cowgirl boots--if I'm going to live in a trailer I'm totally going to rock the cut-off shorts and boots look. Hot stuff.

Christmas is only a week away and this is the first time in either of our lives that our Christmas shopping is done before the 20th. I was able to find a 6' Christmas tree at a garage sale this summer for $10 which we put up within an hour of being home from Thanksgiving. I'm too cheap to go out and buy full price ornaments (I'm waiting for the after-Christmas-75%-off deals) but we had some neighbors lend us some of their ornaments so we don't have a naked tree. :) An interesting thing I learned about Gavin was that he has a serious talent for making fake trees look beautiful. After I compared the branches I had tried to fix with the ones he did, I found myself something else to do and let him tackle the tree.

Gavin was officially done with finals yesterday and I'm probably just as relieved as he is. It was 2 weeks with a lot of late nights and dinners at the law school so Gavin could stay there and study. It's better for him to stay at the school and study because it's too hard for me not to distract him when he's home. We've had a great schedule this past semester, waking up early and I drop Gavin off at school at 7:30 then make it to work in Pullman, WA by 8:00 am. Then he stays at school and studies until I pick him up on my way home from work, usually about 6:00 pm. The past couple of weeks we come home, he studies while I get dinner ready, we eat, and he studies some more. Like I said, I'm glad finals are over! He deserves a vacation and I would like my husband back! :)

Gavin and I are staying here in Moscow for most of the break. I work half the day on Christmas Eve and then we'll head to Boise. For once I'm praying we DON'T have a white Christmas so the roads will be clear. We are both so excited to be with our families for this wonderful time of year. We're especially excited to see Natalie's new baby Olivia Sue and to attend Rob and Lauren's wedding! It's going to be a crazy trip with so much to do with only a few days to do it, but we can't wait! I love Christmas time and the happiness it brings as I focus more on the Savior and the gift He gave to the world. Merry Christmas!