Matt a Priest

So, just a month after Matt's Baptism to the Mormon Religion, he was ordained a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood (Someone who knows church vocabulary better than us, please tell us if we spelled Aaronic correctly.)

The Aaronic Priesthood is a preparatory Priesthood before reaching the Melchezidak Priesthood in which you are able to basically do anything within the church. As a Priest, I am able to Prepare and Bless the Sacrament and also I am able to baptize new members if need be as well, I just have to wait until I get the Melchezidak Priesthood before I would be able to Confirm, give blessings or annointments, and before I can ordain members to a new level of Priesthood.

We are pretty excited about the new way we are living our lives and Matt is very happy with the decision he has made.

Surgery for Matt

I know, shocking it isn't Julia that is out of work for surgery. Last Tuesday, Matt had a tonsilectomy and gets to be out of work until Monday. Thankfully, he is starting to feel much better and is not in very much pain anymore. For those of you who don't know, he had to have his tonsils out for 3 reasons: 1. Sleep Apnea (he stopped breathing 7 times for 30 seconds or more within a 5 hour period) 2. Allergies were making him sick in the morning, 3. He could not train properly for the police department Physical Tests because he would be out of breath after running just around the block and he needs to be able to do 1.5 miles without stopping.

Hopefully, this will all help and he can get back to being his normal eventful self again very soon. Thank You for your Prayers from everyone who knew about the surgery, they were definitely very helpful

Snow, and lots of it

So we are in the midst of our first snowstorm here in Colorado, and if this is any sign of how the winter is going to go, we are in for quite the season. It started snowing less than 24 hours ago and there is probably close to a foot of snow on the ground at our house. October 28th, and we have more snow on the ground than we got all season last year up until March. However, at least our boss is being nice and letting us work in Louisville when it snows so we don't have to drive quite so far, that is nice, except it makes us essential personnel, so WE HAVE TO BE THERE!!! Blah. Oh well, guess it gets Matt ready to be a police officer where he will work whether it snows or not. Anyways, here is a cute picture of Bear, Molly and Liberty enjoying our first snowstorm of the season!!!!

Matt's Birthday and the "Big Surprise"

Ok, so we realized that we have not posted since we announced that we had an announcement and we are sorry. For those of you who do not already know, which should not be very many of you, the big announcement is that Julia is........... NOT pregnant. In fact the big announcement was all about Matt, Matt got baptized Mormon on September 23. What a way to celebrate his 24th birthday. Yes the 23rd was also his birthday. It was really an awesome experience for all involved. Here are some pictures.

Fun Times

So it has been a long time since our last blog, so we will try to get everything into this blog that has happened throughout the last month and a half. At the beginning of August, Matt's sister was in town and we went to Tiny Town, The North Pole, and Water World. It was definitely a fun trip and always great to see Lori. Those pictures will have to get added later because we don't have them on this computer.

As August progressed we came to Thomas' birthday which was very fun as well. We had a birthday dinner for Tom and had an ice cream sandwich cake. I can't believe how old these kids are getting... Thomas is a High Schooler now, Just Crazy.

At the beginning of September, Matt went on another ride along, this time with Aurora Police and it was the first ride along that he actually got to see an arrest take place and take someone to jail. It was pretty fun, just makes me want to be a police officer all the more.

Labor Day weekend we went to Lake McConaughy with Dan, Courtney, Tommy, Kimmy, and Lizzy. We met everyone else up there Saturday afternoon because we had to get the food for the weekend. I was very happy to have my CR-V so I could drive right up to the tents and drop stuff off, unlike Dan who got the van stuck in the sand and had to walk from the parking lot to the tents. Pretty funny stuff, not going to lie. Here is a picture of us by the campfire.

The next amount of fun was Mom Lukens Birthday. Us and Dan and Courtney went over while she was in church and cleaned the house and cooked dinner for her. It was a really great time and she was very shocked when they got home. Now, if we can just find a way for the kids to get along at least on people's birthday's that will be good. Here is a family picture taken by the missionaries.

Stay tuned for future blogs of Matt's Birthday, coming up on Wednesday. Also THE BIG SECRET will be announced very soon and we will blog about the reactions we get once we tell everyone. Matt has to have surgery to have his tonsils removed, and those will be some pictures you won't want to miss. That's all for now.

New Rules at the New Lake

So, for the last few weekends, we have been going to a lake up in Northern Broomfield and swimming there. Up until today, there have never been any signs about no swimming so we have swam across the lake, played with logs, had little rafts out there. Heck, we even took the dogs and they went swimming. Molly and Liberty LOVED this lake. Well, today when we got there, we saw the BRAND NEW, No swimming signs, so what did we do, we jumped in anyways. We went to the dock that we jump off of and started playing around. It was not long until there was a Broomfield Police Officer there telling us we can't swim. I guess it was fun while it lasted, just stinks that we can't have any fun unless we choose to pay for that fun... HELLO, we are in a recession, who has money to pay to have fun, I guess we will see if we can find some new form of free fun. Quite disappointing I must say.

1 Years Old Together

That's right, this past week, our marriage turned 1 year old. It seems like yesterday we were saying I Do in the Butterfly Pavilion, but in all actuality it was a year ago. Crazy how time flies. So, for our Anniversary, Julia and I took a trip to Beautiful Estes Park, Colorado. Although Julia is in a cast, we still had a fantastic time. We got some really beautiful pictures on our way home because we came the long way home through Grand Lake and over Trail Ridge Road. I know it was our Anniversary, but we did not get any pictures of us together mainly because we did not carry the camera too much because Julia was crutching around and Matt was carrying other things for her. Here are some pictures of the scenery that we saw coming over Trail Ridge Road.

One of the things we did was visit the Historical Stanley Hotel and took their Ghost Tour. You may remember the Stanley Hotel from the Movie The Shining. We watched the Mini-Series of The Shining, written by Stephen King the night before we went to the Ghose Tour. It was a pretty cool tour, and the coolest thing was that you could actually feel the presence of the ghosts around you. Our tour guides name was Scary Mary, and if you ever take this tour, make sure you request her. She is the supervisor of the Ghost Tour and she REALLY knows her stuff. She turns a normal hour and a half tour into closer to a two hour tour. I'm not going to give you too much detail about the tour just in case you ever want to go take it, I don't wanna give anything away. But just take a look at some of the pictures and see if you see anything weird in them. We noticed as we were looking at them that some of them had bright spots in different places. You will see on the second picture that there seems like there was an extremely bright light where I took the picture, but there was no light and my flash did not go off. Here are those pictures. Very cool tour. And by the way, there is even part of the tour specifically for the kids, so they would love it as well. A couple of the pictures did not actually come out, although there was plenty of light, they just came out pitch Black. Some crazy things happen in that hotel. But we had a great time. Hope you all can go check it out sometime.

Emilie's 4th Birthday

So we were recently in Montana for Emilie's 4th Birthday and boy was it fun. Matt got to help build a swingset and got to spend some quality time with his sister and neice. Julia ended up going with us, however, she spent the whole week on the couch and only got up when we went somewhere. Emilie's party was at the Zoo Montana where they let her choose an animal that she wanted to have an encounter with. She chose a Clydesdale. I think I personally would have chosen the tiger or the bear, but it was her choice and she had a blast feeding and petting the horses. Here are some pictures and videos from our trip.

The Porcupine Dances

Happy Birthday to you!!!

Colorado State Patrol

So, Saturday night, Matt got the opportunity to go out on patrol with the Colorado State Patrol from 4:30 PM until 4:30 AM on Sunday morning. Let me tell ya, way cool. I got to watch them test some shrooms to ensure they were drugs, I got to see how a roadside sobriety test goes, and got to see the Boulder County Jail all in the same night. Seeing as though I want to be a cop, I thought it was pretty cool to be out with them all night, and I even got to write a warning ticket to someone. I think CSP is the way to go being a cop though, I love being out in traffic and that is what I want to do. The other departments have to go to peoples houses to check in on them and stuff like that, which don't get me wrong, if I get offered a job with another department, I will take it, at least until CSP has an opening. Anyways, pretty fun stuff. I definitely suggest you try to get out on a ride sometime, even if you aren't wanting to be a cop. And don't worry, if I get on as a cop, you can ride along with me. Sorry, no pictures of this one, you will just have to imagine in your head how cool it was.

A Few Fun Things to Blog About

So, I was just going through and clearing out our camera, from back in November 2008. That shows you how few pictures we take lol. Well, we had some fun pictures that we wanted to show off. Most of you know that in March, right before Julia's surprise Birthday Party, we had the biggest snow storm of the season, the Spring Blizzard of 2009. Well, Molly and Liberty (our two black labs) had a blast in the snow. I caught some pretty good action shots of them, as well as a couple pics to show just how deep the snow really was at our house. Here are those pictures.

Julia's Birthday still turned out to be a big hit because the next day was nice and warm and melted a lot of the snow, We did, however, have to live without heat because the ignitor switch on our furnace went out, and what better time that during the blizzard. We slept with extra blankets because the house was only about 45 degrees inside. Brrr. We will have some pictures and videos of Julia's Birthday up soon. We just have to get them from Jessica.

Christina and Becca recently came out to visit for 2 weeks, and Christina brought her kids Eli and Leah and they are the cutest little kids in the world. They love to dance, so we took some pictures and video of them dancing. Here they are, very cute.

And the last tid bit that we want to share with you is the pictures that people have been waiting for of the Barney Room. It does not look as Bright now that the paint is dry, but it still kinda looks like Barney blew up, at least on the accent wall. Take a look at the room. Nice paint job Jewels.

Bad Bloggers

OK!!!! We are sorry that everytime you see our name come up on your blog you see that we have not blogged since January, but hey, give us a little break. All of you have babies to blog about, or vacations to blog about. So here is our latest blog... We wake up in the mornings, drive the 40 miles to Aurora to go to work, work an 8-10 hour day, and then drive the 40 miles home and watch some TV, then it is bed time.

Weekends is about the only time we really have time to do anything, and even then, we are busy working around the house. We are so close to having the basement bathroom done, it looks amazing. Matt and his dad put the toilet back in today so Julia doesn't have to go all the way upstairs in the middle of the night so that is good. We also had to find a make shift way to fix our basement shower because the glass enclosure shattered when we were trying to make it fit back in the hole today, so we had to buy a rounded shower curtain rod and a new shower curtain for the basement, but thats ok, we really did not like the glass enclosure anyways. The whole bathroom is really looking great.

We will soon be moving back upstairs to the Master Bedroom which will be good for us. Julia is painting the bedroom today to match our bedspread. It is purple and the accent wall looks like Barney exploded on it LOL. But that is ok, it really does look great.

We do have a few things that we will blog about here soon, but we are waiting on pictures from Julia's Birthday party and some other things. More to come, and don't worry, when we have babies we will blog more often so that our siblings out of state can keep up with their neices and nephews.

New addition to the Family

Don't worry, Julia is not pregnant. At least not yet. We are looking to wait a little bit of time and have some time to ourselves before the kids come along. Julia has wanted a lap dog since Dan and Courtney got Miley and Andy and Ashley got Pickles. Well she finally got her little lap dog, but he thinks he is a big dog because he plays with Molly and Liberty as if he were as big as them. Bear is a Chihuahua/Maltese mix and loves his new home. His favorite toy is his older brother Alvin. Yes the cat. He terrorizes the cat and wrestles with him. Very fun to watch. Here are some pics.

Happy New Years 2009

Well we also had a fun New Year. Matt's best friend TJ got married on New Years Eve, so Matt spent all day New Years Eve in Loveland helping him get ready and stay de-stressed. Julia and Matt's parents came up for the wedding and Matt and Julia got a hotel room for the night because Matt was the Best Man and the reception didn't get over until well after midnight. Unfortuntaely we don't have pictures because we forgot our camera. But it was a fun night. and from our family to yours HAPPY NEW YEARS 2009

Christmas 2008

Well again, we had an extremely fun Christmas as is the case every year between our two families. We started with Christmas Eve going to Matt's Aunt and Uncle's house for chili and fellowship with Matt's family. After that we went to Julia's parents and spent George's (Julia's Dad) birthday with him. We went home and slept and started over the next morning. We went to Julia's parents and opened presents, then off to Matt's parents house for Christmas Dinner and Opening presents (Matt got a WII, he was very excited), and then back to Julia's parents for another Christmas Dinner. I think between Thanksgiving and Christmas we put on about 50 extra pounds because we eat with both families. Anyways, the only mishap of Christmas this year was that our sewage system backed up into our basement. It did not flood or anything, just made it where we had to re-wash all the clean clothes that were in the laundry room. Matt's dad came over and we got it fixed and cleaned up just fine.

Our Marriage is Blessed

2 Days after Thanksgiving. We had our Marriage Blessed in the Catholic Church. It was very nice to have both sets of parents there to witness us as we "sealed" our marriage in our Church.

Thanksgiving 2008

Ok, so I know that Thanksgiving was like 2 and a half month's ago and that we have not blogged for a while. So, we will post a few blogs today to bring you up to date. First is Thanksgiving. It was great to have Andy back this year, it gave us something extremely special to be Thankful for. Matt also had another thing to be Thankful for this year. Matt's sister came home for Thanksgiving from Montana with her husband and daughter. Matt was so excited to see her and his neice that he could hardly work on the Friday before she got here. While she was here, Matt took the week off and spent lots of time with her. He went with her to the zoo, to the holiday shows in the new shopping mall on 144th and I-25, and all sorts of things. The best part about it was we got to spend Thanksgiving with both Matt's sister and Julia's brother Andy. It was a very special Thanksgiving. Here are some pics of Matt with his sister and pics of Thanksgiving day at the Luken's house are sure to come.