Graduation and on to real life!

Well I have to start off by apologizing! I know I haven't posted anything since the fall... but life has been very busy. In October Juston and I, with the help of both of our families put on a straw maze in Rexburg. A straw maze is just like a corn maze, but we used straw bales instead of corn! It was a lot of fun and we learned a ton... We're going to do it again this year. So stay posted and if you want more up to date information on that- like us on facebook at The Cedar Point.

Graduation
Since then Juston and i have been very busy with school. We were both going to school full time in the winter, and we finally finished in April! So here are some pictures from graduation. Thanks to all of our friends and family that helped us reach our goal to graduate.

Easter

Here are a couple of pictures from Easter. Austin is definitely his mothers child- he loves chocolate! 

And he was so good at the Easter egg hunt. At first he didn't get it, but after he saw his cousins and realized there were chocolate inside... he picked up pretty fast.

Jackson Hole Wyoming
My parents stayed in town for a little while, so we went up to Jackson Hole Wyoming. Here are a couple of pictures from there!

Sorry I'm not sure why this last picture looks so weird... anyways we had a lot of fun in Jackson.

Yellowstone!
So the last 4 years that I have lived in Idaho I have never had the chance to go to Yellowstone! So we took a day trip and drove up with Juston's family. Right after we entered the park, there were buffalo just walking down the middle of the street! It was really cool. Juston's mom thought Juston should get a really good picture of it... so she proceeded to open the automatic sliding door for Juston who was sitting in the back of the van. Juston started to freak out because the buffalo was like not even 10 feet away from him! Needless to say, he was just fine and he did get a good picture. 

So this last picture probably seems pretty random... but if you look closely some of us are in the picture more than once! On our camera there is a panoramic view... so you have to move the camera to get the whole picture. In this picture we decided to try and move ourselves into the picture more than once. I hope that makes sense, but I just thought it was fun to add :)

Golden Spike
Another place that we have visited is the Golden Spike in Utah. This is where the two Railroads met when they were crossing the United States. Austin had a lot of fun on the railroad tracks (don't worry the trains were not operating).

We also went to a Diamond Rio concert, which was a lot of fun! I didn't know many of the words to the songs, but Juston did :) Juston's horse had a baby a week and a half ago, and we've planted our garden.... so more pictures to come.

The Cedar Point Straw Maze

For the 18 years that I grew up in New York every fall there were lots of fall activities! There were many different straw mazes, corn mazes, pumpkin patches, and just fun entertainment. Last year when I was back in New York, Juston and I though that we should try a straw maze of our own! We came back to Rexburg Idaho and began to think of a plan.

On Juston's parent's property there is this old schoolhouse called Cedar Point. So we decided to use this as are landmark, hence The Cedar Point Straw Maze. This year we have a huge straw maze! The maze will be haunted the week before Halloween! There will also be a children's maze so the kids have something that they can enjoy as well. We have farm animals, pumpkins, and of course delicious food! Check out our website at thecedarpoint.com or find us on facebook!

This is the closest Halloween entertainment to BYU-Idaho!


As you can tell we are really excited about it. :)

Canada

Right after the semester ended in July we went up to Canada to visit Juston's family. Austin was so good throughout the LONG car ride.

This is the 'famous' penguin that we always stop at to stretch our legs in Montana. 

 Yes if you look closely... Austin is spitting up on Juston's head :)

 This is Juston's Grandma James. They're waiting for the pioneer day parade!

Everyone waiting for the parade!

Grandma James, Austin, Juston, and I. We had a great time visiting everyone. Thanks for letting us come! Sorry the sun is shining through the window behind us...

Ward Camp-out

Our ward was planning a camp-out, but all of the parks in the area were flooded. So we did it in Juston's parents backyard! At times it felt a little ghetto... but it was a lot of fun and actually really nice to have a kitchen to wash dishes, refrigerate food, and the best part was the flushing toilets :). 

Thanks to everyone who came! We had a great time.

New York/ Mindy's shower

Austin and I flew out to NY for Mindy's wedding shower. We only told my dad and my aunt Karen, so we surprised everyone else! It was so fun. Austin got his first tooth the day we flew out! Poor guy I'm sure he was in pain the whole day. But he was still smiling.

 Here are some pictures of the party in action!

 Aunt Betty, Grandma Hess, Austin and I!

 Andrea took all the bows and ribbons from the gifts and made this great hat for Mindy! Isn't it beautiful. She's so creative.

We also went down to Philadelphia and New Jersey and had a shower at my Aunt Karen's house. That was a lot of fun as well! I forgot to take pictures at this shower :(

Father's Day

Ok so first of all I want to apologize, it has been forever since I have blogged. Life has been pretty busy with Juston and I both going to school... and just life in general. However, that's no excuse so I apologize.

For Father's day I made this book with Shutterfly. Here is the link, so check it out! http://justonicoleriley.shutterfly.com/?role=-1#n_4

Hope you enjoy it!

Austin's blessing

Life has been a little crazy… but absolutely wonderful. Austin is really the BEST baby we could ask for. Even though Juston and I are both going to school and trying to take care of Austin I wouldn’t change anything. I’ll admit I am a worrier, I try not to be, but sometimes I can’t help it. I have been working on having faith even when I have no idea what is going to happen. It’s incredible how things work out even when it looks like they won’t.  I found this quote and I really love it. “Faith makes all things possible.... love makes all things easy.” (Sorry I don’t know who it’s from) I think I am going to make this my motto.

Well on February 20^th we blessed Austin. My dad was able to come out and visit over President’s day weekend, so we decided to bless Austin that weekend. It was really great having my dad out here. Almost all of our families were able to come and celebrate with us. The weekend was a lot of fun! We had almost all of our immediate family here, which was great to get everyone together. Thanks to everyone that came and for all the help with the luncheon! 

Here are some pictures of Austin in his blessing outfit. 

The Hess family photo, we never got one with the Riley family :(