Summer Explorers!

          Scott and I have had one heck of a summer so far. Oreo gave birth to one tomato, and now has 7 more coming.  I got a full-time job at a property management company and now have to pretend to know what I'm doing.  And Scott's been fixing cars like crazy and doing wheelies in the golf cart he drives for work (BYU-I mail services).  We've been able to squeeze a ton of fun into our packed days still.
    We love driving up to Idaho Falls and hanging out with the Harris family- Berret and Tanya are so much fun and Hallie just stole the key to our hearts!  We got to go with them on a Sunday drive around Yellowstone National Park a couple of weeks ago,     and I have to say the most entertaining part of the trip was all the jokes in the car.
     The next weekend we went with a bunch of Scott's old roommates up to the ice caves- I got around a lot easier on the slippery, small tunnels than Scott did- but Scott was more graceful than he's ever been:)
      And this last weekend was a real blast. We went back to Yellowstone with half the Peacock family! Becky, Landon, Joey, and Adge were all there with us. It was so great to see my siblings have so much fun with my husband. He fits right into our family!!   Scott almost got charged by a buffalo, I forgot my pillow and ended up sharing a sleeping bag with Scott- worst idea EVER, and Becky balanced her preggo self over a creek on a log with Lando.
            Needless to say, we plan on recuperating this weekend and spending the whole weekend by ourselves around Rexburg. But we love the warm weather and being able to spend so many great times with our friends and family!
      

Brothers.

When Mother's Day rolled around my little brother asked the question: "Why isn't there a Brother's Day?!" I thought that was pretty funny and gave me some inspiration to spend a little extra time today acknowledging the brothers in my life.

Well my little brother Joey is graduating from high school soon and starting school at BYU! I'm so excited he will be closer to me and Scott, and have been thinking about him a lot- wishing I could come to Portland to hear his speech at graduation, see him get his eagle, be ordained an elder, etc... But I'm glad we can be close anyways even if we are far away from each other.

Lando was a nice edition to our family when he somehow managed to catch my awesome twin sister, and it's been so much fun to finally have a big brother!

I thought about what makes my brothers so... UNIQUE. And thought pictures and even a video might do more justice than any words could. So to Joey and Lando- I love you guys!

Lando and Jack from Erica Winkler on Vimeo.

Friday Night= Date Night!

Okay, so when we went over our finances the first time Scott had this GENIUS idea of only going out to eat when we had enough money in change:)  So we saved our change all of April, and for this Friday night date night we decided to splurge with what we had saved up! We started out flipping through the coupon book for Papa Murphy's and found a large pepperoni for 5 bucks, and then we decided to grab some vanilla icecream and candy bars to make shakes with.

 We had some extra luck during our adventure out that night. First: We got to Papa Murphy's and they had a family size pepperoni that they made extra and gave us that instead of a large! Second: When we were in line buying Scott's Reeses at Walmart, the cashier told us we looked like a very nice, cute couple.
  
Needless to say, it turned out to be one heck of a great night (and all for the low low price of 9.00)!  We flirted across the table over our food, and spent the night watching "Zombieland" (Scott loves it).

 I love spending time with my best friend. He makes me laugh, he teaches me new things all the time, and he tries so hard to understand me.  I think it's important to learn how to have fun wherever you are, and enjoy the little things... especially on friday nights.

                                                                                                    TGIF!

E is even more than anyone you could adore!!!

  Well it's about time I introduce a new member of the family... This is "Oreo", he's a tomato plant. We bought him at the Rexburg Farmer's Market!  We love him very much and hope he loves us back by giving us delicious tomatoes to eat soon!!! I just bought his new home for him today- a 15" pot and some miracle-gro soil! 

   Along with Oreo's new home, is our newly furnished and finished apartment! (thanks to the awesome family I babysit for who gave us the couches!)    We love filling our new home with loud laughter, kicking our shoes off, and being ourselves with each other.  What a refreshing part of life- to be able to stay somewhere where you are safe, secure, and most importantly loved! Whatever adventures come our way, I will always remember what a blessing it is to make a place we can call home. We both feel very fortunate to have all we do, and thank all our family and friends who have helped us make it what it is. I've posted some pictures to share below (just click on the url and it will bring you to a slideshow). Enjoy!

http://www.go2album.com/album/e/w/i/n/k/ewinkler/4be9b859165/new_home%21.swf?fs_path=http://www.go2album.com/album/e/w/i/n/k/ewinkler/4be9b859165

Home SWEET Home!

Our first time in our new apartment---

V- is very very... extraordinary!

Happy Cinco De Mayo my friends! Before I go off to bed, I wanted to post our celebrations for the night- pretty simple. We layed on the floor during one of Scott's frequent homework breaks and ate chips and dip we got on sale at Walmart:)  It's kind of ridiculous, but this past-time strangely means a lot to the both of us (yes I'm talking sentimentally about chips n dip)...

When we were engaged, we set out on a Friday night for a date.  Well we ended up in the Walmart buying ruffles and french onion dip because we were starving and hadn't eaten dinner yet.  So, we took them out to the truck, and instead of resuming our plans and going bowling, we spent the night in a parking lot staring off into an ugly scenery of dry grass, semi-trucks and the neon glow of fast-food joints. We just sat and talked, listened to the radio, and I confess- put away the entire carton of dip and the bag of chips... But it just goes to show we can have fun  absolutely anywhere- doing absolutely anything!!!

I love my husband and I love Lays for bringing us closer together. Happy 5th everyone.

O- is for the only one I see!

"Our greatest strength as a human is our ability to acknowledge our differences, our greatest weakness is our failure to embrace them." 

    When Scott drove out to Idaho for school he picked these magnets out at a gas station along the way.  He saved them for our first refrigerator and now here they are!  I LOVE them.  They say so much about our relationship. 

    One of the biggest life lessons I've learned is from my husband, (as I'm sure many of them will be):  People always say look past your differences, when in reality you need to understand each other's differences and embrace them!  Scott makes up where I lack and visa versa. 

    For example, Scott is SO OBSERVANT. I, on the other hand am horrible at noticing details.  Scott helps me realize when I need to watch for more details- like when he woke up one morning and found my key had been left in the front door all night.  

     Or take our eating habits even: I take forever eating- I love to savor each bite.  Scott is more of the mindset: "go big or go home"... I think this picture speaks for itself:) 

      Being able to see our differences for what they are is such a great skill we have learned to acquire.  It's workin great so far in the past... 3 weeks that we've been married! So I'm just acknowledging (and embracing) some of the differences we have, and invite any body reading this to do the same!