The BAH blog

Baby and School

2010-01-10T13:22:00.000-08:00

Here are some awesome pictures that I neglected to put in the previous post. These were all taken a while ago:

This is us at the oh-so-fancy Melting Pot enjoying our chocolate fondu

Breck was chillin' in the back of the helicopter and taking pictures

Co-pilot Alisha reporting for duty!

There was a random/cool octopus tree that we had our picture with

Breck makes a good-looking best man!

Mt. Hood from my window seat in the airplane ride to Portland

Yay for an exciting week!We certainly started off this year with some big new changes. By far the most exciting news this week was we found out that we are having a GIRL!!! We are both so excited. Breck came to the appointment with me and was holding my hand throughout the ultrasound. What a sweet and supportive husband! He was squeezing my hand like crazy when we found out that it was a girl. *Smiles all around * It was so much fun to see her kicking on the ultrasound and to feel it at the same time. She was so good and fairly cooperative.

In other news: as many of you may already know, I am student teaching this semester. My first day was on Tuesday. Right off the bat we had a faculty meeting and I was slightly intimidated. I was completely surrounded by older and more experienced teachers. They were very nice though. The students are pretty good and they were all interested when I introduced myself. I am simply amazed at all the technology that my cooperating teacher has! She has a smartboard (that can do powerpoints, and many other amazing things), I-clickers (automatic voting buttons on questions), and many test software programs so that her tests are on the computer! Wow... I had the impression that schools were still using overhead projectors... some probably still are, but I'm glad that I'm being exposed to so many things.

Here is a picture of my first day of school and the day of the ultrasound :)

Catching Up

2010-01-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are at the beginning of a new year! *Sigh* I bet you can guess what one of my resolutions will be...

I figure before I can move on and do this regularly, I need to do some catching up. Our last post was about my many many field trips. After that semester ended Breck and I took a vacation-ish trip to Oregon. The real reason we went was for Breck's high school friends wedding. It was so awesome. Not only was it a beautiful wedding, but they had it in an aerospace museum and the reception was under the Spruce Goose. That was pretty awesome.

We did some pretty awesome things like go to a world-famous aquarium, visited some cool sites on the beach, went to a market place in Portland and ate at the Melting Pot. Yum. I must admit that my favorite thing though was our helicopter tour of Mt. St. Helens. That was thrilling to say the least.

A new semester started in September and with it the news that Breck and I were/are expecting our first child :) It was wonderful news, but I must admit that being pregnant made last semester ridiculously hard. Breck took it easy only having two classes, but the purpose of that light load was that he would be able to find a job. I don't know why all the jobs suddenly disappeared, but they did so as soon as he started looking. He's been looking for months!

*Sigh*

The most recent occurrences happened over the Christmas break where much awesomeness ensued. For most of the break here Breck and I took a much needed rest and relaxed ourselves silly. We were also able to go down to Utah and visit my family. Yay family!!! We both had so much fun seeing everybody and going to the various parties.

In closing, I am so thankful for Breck, my various family and loved ones, friends and for the opportunity we have to be at BYU-Idaho for our education. To those who still read this blog... thank you so much and we love you!

*PS if anybody wants to see pictures here as opposed to facebook, just let me know! I don't have a whole bunch, but they are still pretty cool. *

All Over the West

2009-11-23T20:52:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!!! I know that it has been at least a million years since I have entered cyberspace via blog, but fear not I have returned.

Here are a few things that have happened in the Harris World in the past few months *warning, this may be long-ish:

To be honest, over the summer we went on so many trips that they all just blur together… so I’ll just highlight some awesomeness. We took a trip to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks in Utah. It was so fantastic because I had never been over in that area. It was a strangely strong yet delicate place, and even as an Earth Science student the process and structure of the arches absolutely amazed me.

We also went to some very close geologic wonders like the Tetons and Yellowstone. We went to each several times because that’s how cool they are. Anyway, We also ventured out a bit to go to Thompson Creek Mine in central Idaho(they mine Molybdenite and we got to touch it…and it was gooey, slippery, and looked silver-ish). Craters of the Moon was yet another amazing stop along the way, and guess what… it looked like we were on the moon. Surprising? Apparently the person who named it thought so too.

Lastly (as far as the fieldtrips) was an awesome excursion to the Grand Canyon. I had been before, but not quite like this, this was completely off the beaten track. Just to give you an idea, the nearest real toilet was about 3 hours north. Yeah. We were roughing it in 110 degree weather. But on the plus side, we got to see the Grand Canyon without the landscape being marred by fences, or boatloads of tourists. It was a great communion with nature.

Another fun non-field-trip related occurrence was my parents coming up for my birthday. It was so much fun! We got to show them around a bit and visit a bunch.

Well, that covers most things up until the end of July.

Menan Buttes

2009-06-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

Field Trip number 2:

We went to the Menan Buttes on our second field trip. We were going to go to the North Butte (the one that is open to the public), but there were like a million school kids there, so that was a no-go. Luckily our resident-veteran-retired geology teacher lives on the other butte and you can only go on that one if you live there.

So, we learned about cool stuff and hiked around (which was so exhausting) and collected samples.

*Yes, I know that my hat is kinda dorky... but you have to understand that this is "standard" gear for a geologist :)*

At the Dunes and in a cave

2009-06-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me apologize to Breck for not having more of him in some of these entries. As I mentioned before, I am taking a field-trip class that he is not in. That being said, here are some of my adventures!

On our first field trip we went to the Sand Dunes just north of Rexburg. It was windy and yucky, but still cool since I had never been there. We learned about stuff, but I will spare you guys the lecture :)

After that we went to the Civil Defense Caves, which are some pretty awesome lava tubes. It was a little bit too dark for a picture, but it was pretty awesome. The only downside to the cave was that there was so much trash in it! We even found a couch... yeah... that's random. Anyway, so our class did our civil duty and picked up the garbage that was in there. It will probably get filthy again during the next teenage rave (curse those kids :), but at least we got the warm fuzzies of doing it.

I almost forgot: So my professor, Brother Gahn, is a rediculously fast hiker and is notorious for leaving people in the dust. Well on the way out of the cave I caught up with him and we (along with a guy from my class, Brad) left everybody way behind. When we got out of the cave we went to the van and moved it out of sight so that the people coming out would be like, "Oh no, where's the van? THEY LEFT US!!!" Ha ha ha. It was so funny. We finally drove the van out of our hiding spot, much to the relief of the rest of the class.

I'm a slacker-face

2009-06-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

Oh wow, it has been a rediculously long time since I have written anything. I freely admit that I am a complete slacker-face *sigh*. So to catch everybody up, I'm going to just give a breif review of our lives for the past few months.

We finished winter semester which was a relief. During the semester break we went to Jackson Hole to celebrate our 1 year anniversary (a little bit early). It was so nice, winter season was over, but summer had not started yet, so we were the only ones there (we only saw 10 other people in the resort town where we were staying).

Let's see, oh... Breck and I got RC cars that are beasts. Boo-yah. I'll have to take some pictures one of these days.

I started a new semester in April and am taking an awesome field trip class (more on that later).

A few weeks ago Breck and I went to Lagoon and had loads of fun.

Well, that's it for now... sorry that was lame-ish, but I will really try to be better!

Back to school

2009-01-18T17:59:00.000-08:00

Well, for the past two weeks Breck and I have been back to school. This semester is pretty much ridiculous for me because I have four geography classes (Cultural geography, geography of developing nations, geography and world affairs, and advanced GIS), a technical writing class, and I work about 14 hours a week (which is the most I have ever done during school). Wow... I just noticed that I used a lot of parentheses in the previous sentence (sorry about that (there I go again (wow I need to work on my sentence structure :) (which is what technical writing is for(hopefully)))))!!!

Just as a random note, all of my classes have a lot of students in them except for my advanced GIS class, which has a grand total of 4 people. Wowzers.

Breck has a pretty full plate this semester as well. He is taking two very difficult math classes, technical writing (unfortunately not in the same class), and Old testament. He is a grader for the physics department and will start working with that pretty soon.

Well, that's about it for the Harris family.
I hope that everyone has a great day!

Parties!

2009-01-18T17:42:00.000-08:00

Whew, I haven't had a moment to spare for quite a while. So to catch everybody up with the Harris family I will have to back up a few weeks.

We did make it to Utah safely for the parties... woot... and had a great time with my family. It was really fun to see everybody and have a good laugh about how cute my nephew and niece are. So anyway, here are the pictures that I promised:

Wow, here is the whole family! This is the picture that turned out nice, for me (because Breck tickled me and I squealed for the other one... grr... :)

This is us opening a nice present from Nicole and Marc. It was a book and a gift card to Applebees (which disappeared very quickly).

The following pictures were taken the next day at the Parker party (the big family party)

(^^^^ I'm not sure what's up with that face... Breck must have said something odd :)

We both had a great time in Utah. Yay for families!

Travel Troubles

2008-12-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

Before I go any further, the misfortune that follows is in no way a poor reflection of our Christmas

After we had our Christmas present fun I went back to bed for a few hours and then we had a blast playing with our toys. As the day wore on I realized that I needed to go to work (in a manner of speaking... I get the weather data for the school). Usually this is not a big deal, but overnight it had snowed over a foot. Once again, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but this snow was not the normal powder, it was like wet sand.

Our adventure didn't start out well: we got stuck going out of our parking lot, going downhill. Getting stuck while going downhill is never a good sign. Breck got out (barely because the snow was up to the door!) and dug out the tires so that we could escape. Then we decided to go around to the weather station, which is uphill=ridiculous, and we got stuck again. It doesn't look to bad in the picture, but it was... trust me.

After we got unstuck from that one we decided to go home. We got stuck again going into our parking lot. We eventually had to ditch our car about a half mile down the hill and walk home. We were afraid of getting towed, so we went back at 10 o'clock to get our car back. They had already plowed the roads, which made us very nervous. The snowplow luckily went around our car, but that left it buried. Luckily we brought a shovel and dug out our car. It took us about an hour, but the roads were good so we drove home (well, up until the parking lot).

There were two other cars stuck in the entrance... they still hadn't plowed our parking lot! So we spent the next hour and a half digging a path to some parking spots... ugh. But on the plus side, we had a lot of fun out in the snow and we made some new friends!

Whew, we finally got to bed around one that night. The next morning we packed and got ready to go to Utah. On the way to Idaho Falls our car was shaking like a massage chair and we decided to turn around. We went to get it fixed... guess what... we had ice and snow stuck all over in our tires (go figure, that's what happens when your car is buried up to the windows).

So we were on the road again in no time. Unfortunately the roads were terrible. We saw at least 10 crashes on our way down. One happened right in front of us (we drove through the puff of snow that they left on the road). They were sliding all over the place and went right off the road. We couldn't stop because there were no shoulders at all, but Breck called 911.

We finally made it safely. What a blessing!

First Christmas

2008-12-30T18:42:00.000-08:00

The Harris Family (that's us) had a quiet first Christmas. Breck claimed two things: 1) I would poop my pants when I opened my gift 2) He would wake me up at eight and we would open presents. Well, he was pretty close-ish on both accounts.

I woke up earlier than I ever have on Christmas (6:30 am) and proceeded to excitedly nudge Breck into consciousness. "Eeeee... It's Christmas morning...eeeee," was the first thing that escaped me as we jumped out of bed.

This was what we saw upon entering our living room. This is our modest little 3-footer... yay, cuteness!

I can't believe that I actually ripped through the paper on the presents! It was invigorating to show no remorse for shredding the paper to bits! Mwa ha ha! Oh, and I pretty much pooped my pants when I opened my new WII FIT!!! Yay! They were so hard to get before Christmas, but Breck found one for me. I gave Breck computer stuff and headphones and we were both very excited.

This Christmas was vastly different than any other I have ever had, but it was amazing. I realized that Christmas isn't about presents, or even about the seemingly important family traditions. The true meaning of Christmas is love. This is the time of year that we celebrate the Savior's birth and the love that he has for all of us.

I love this time of year and it was the most wonderful thing to spend Christmas with my new family, Breck. The first Harris Christmas was the best ever!

Paper Challenged

2008-12-24T17:57:00.000-08:00

Last night we had the wonderful opportunity to go to our first, as-a-married-couple, ward Christmas party. It was great, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that we aren't the only ones that will be here for Christmas (in our complex).

We were merrily greeted by a surprising (and startling) "Ho Ho Ho!" from our ward's very own Santa Claus. We each took turns as a couple sitting on Santa's lap, getting our traditional Santa-plus-happy-"kid" picture... and he even gave us presents! Now that is definitely the ward Christmas party I was hoping for. *I don't know when we will get that picture, but I will post it when it comes* Breck ended up getting a dictionary, and I got body butter (which sounds disgusting, but smells great).

The funniest and most embarrassing part of the party was the paper challenges. We were supposed to have a paper behind our backs and tear out the shapes of a Christmas tree and a snowflake. Breck did a really good job on both of them and even won a prize for his snowflake. Guess which ones are his? That's right, the ones that actually look decent (on the right). I decided that I have no behind-my-back paper skills... I was definitely paper challenged :P

After that we had doughnuts and watched Mr. Kruger's Christmas (a classic that I had never seen before). It was a lot of fun to socialize with our fellow ward members and have some good laughs.

Just to prove that I can make decent snowflakes, when I'm looking, here is an additional pic:

Holiday Countdown

2008-12-21T20:20:00.000-08:00

What better time to start a blog than during the Holidays. The snow is piling up, the temperatures are dropping like spit off of a roof, and there are warm blankies-aplenty. It's bloggin' time!

I have always thought that Christmas countdowns were incredibly exciting. This year is no different... in fact... the countdown has been taken up a few notches. I'm not talking about advent calendars, paper rings to rip down one by one, or even crossing out the days leading to Christmas. I'm talking about my own personal walking, talking, loving, Christmas count-down-o'meter. His name is Breck.

Around every corner waits... "Oh Alisha, you are going to be so excited," or the even better, "You are going to poop you pants Christmas morning." I hope for everybody's sake that I can hold it in. I fear that Breck is going to faint before I even get within tearing distance of the presents.

Well, we'll see what is in store for the Harris family's first Christmas.