Tribute

My Grandma, Vera Jeffery Jackson, passed away on Thursday morning. It was not completely unexpected, as she was 83 years old and developing Alzheimer's. All the same, it has been a sad experience for me. I loved my Grandma a lot, and always knew that she loved me and my siblings unconditionally. For many years, we were her only three grandchildren and attention was lavished upon us.

She used to make us doll clothes for our Cabbage Patches, buy us treats, teach us to cook and sew, and she gave really good hugs. When I was six years old, we moved to Idaho and built a new house. My grandparents were living in Coronado, CA at the time, and allowed us to live in their home for the months that we were waiting for our new house to be complete. Even when they returned, they lived in a nearby apartment for several months when our house was still not complete. Their selflessness astounds me.

I am very sad that Landon did not know my Grandma before her memory started to fade. I am also sad that my children will never know her. But I am happy that she is now with her husband again, after a 16 year separation. We love and miss you, Grandma Vera!

A day in the life of a Geologist

In case anyone was wondering what Landon has been up to lately (he's in the green jacket with his back to the camera)...

This is just a typical class period for him. I'm going to have to talk to him about being a little more careful on those cliff edges! What a fun major he has found. It has everything he likes; dirt, rock climbing, science and dinosaurs. Lucky guy. I hope when he gets a job he enjoys it as much.

History

I think James Madison would be proud of us today. For overcoming our differences. For uniting in a common cause. For the peaceful transfer of power. For a lack of riots. For following the constitution to the letter, more than 200 years later. For the dignity of the office. For the freedom of the press. For remembering that we are Americans.

Walking With Dinosaurs

No really. All of you who asked us jokingly if we were going to see the Walking With Dinosaurs show when it was in SLC last week, we totally did. What can we say? Landon is actually studying Paleontology, we're no posers. Although we may have been the only people there who weren't with someone under the age of 12.

It was fabulous. Better than expected. Realistic. Really fun. Even - dare we say it? EPIC.
(Miles, that was for you)

For those of you who don't know, "Walking With Dinosaurs" is a BBC special that was created with computer graphics as a documentary on dinosaurs. It's pretty cool. We were probably also the only people there who had not only seen, but actually own this show on DVD. Anyway, they have created a live performance of the show. Think of it as Disney on Ice for Dinosaur geeks. Only better. Well, we couldn't really NOT go, in light of Landon's major and life-long obsession with prehistoric creatures. So we saved our pennies and rode trax downtown for the ultimate experience. Here are just a few of the 100+ photos taken (we have videos as well, for anyone who's interested):

Brachiosaurus and Baby Brachiosaurus

Yep, we're totally enjoying ourselves!

This is the famous T-Rex...Doesn't he look real?

And this was the best part of the whole show...Landon watching the T-Rex! He was sooooo excited. Yes, it's possible I am married to a 12 year old in a 23 year old's body. But I love him, so it works! We had so much fun spending the day together and getting out to do something wild and crazy. It was totally worth the money we spent for the memories that we created. If it comes to a city near you - we can now highly recommend it.

There's a First Time for Everything

Have you ever played that game, "I have never...?" It's a fun way to introduce kids to each other at EFY, scout camp, elementary school, you name it. You sit in a circle, hold up ten fingers, and rattle off things you've never done. If someone in the circle HAS done it, they have to put down a finger. When all ten fingers are down, you're out. I've always been pretty good at this game, since I've never had stitches or broken a bone. But thanks to good friends and a great husband, I can no longer say, "I've never been ice skating."

I was the only first-timer, and I was very wobbly and slow, but everyone was nice and hung out with me anyway. And I didn't fall down once (although Landon did)! It was also another first - the first double-date we've been on since we were married 19 months ago. A little sad, I know. Thanks to Chel and Kyle, we're not as lame as we used to be! We first went to Famous Dave's, and then to the rink: we got there about 30 minutes before it closed, so they didn't make us pay. What luck!


Afterwards, we were (or at least I was) pretty worn out, so we rounded off the evening by playing games at our apartment (thanks Josh, that Clue game is awesome!) and eating homemade popcorn. All-in-all, definitely an experience to remember. I love to have new experiences and aquire new skills. And I just plain love being with Landon!

It's working, It's working!!!!!

(For those of you who don't get the Jake Lloyd reference in the title, sorry for repeating myself)
After a long and tedious process of moving an entire album off of my Picasa account to another account, we are back in business! I've had a Picasa for years - used it to back up a lot of my photography from Europe, NY, class assignments, etc. I didn't realize that was how Blogger stored photos, as well. But I just moved about 400 pictures over, and now, without further ado, I will post.

Blogger in Crisis

Apparently, there is a limit to the number of photos that can be uploaded to Blogger!! Who knew? Yesterday, I was getting all set to post about our super fun double-date last weekend, when to my dismay, an error box came up declaring that I had "exceeded my quota" for photos. Aaah! I am at a loss. So, until I get this figured out, all my faithful blog followers will have to do without my weekly posts. Which makes me more sad than any of you, I am sure. If anyone has ideas, please let me know. Until then, this is the Burgeners, signing off.

Belated (yet obligatory) New Year Post

Kicking off 2009 has been a little slow in the Burgener household. After returning from our wonderful vacation and getting most of our Christmas stuff put away (there's still one box in our living room that we haven't gotten around to yet), we started right back into a new semester of school and a new year of work. We've just now gotten around to settling in and reflecting on the old year and the new. Here's the highlights/predictions:

2008 in Review:

• Started a blog - a good way to waste time, but also a great way to keep track of our lives and our friends.
  
• Our first full year of marriage! We celebrated our 1st anniversary in June. We're loving every second of it, and hoping it just keeps getting better.
• First grown-up church callings: Kylie survived the Sunbeams and Landon is enjoying his work as a finance clerk, Sunday School teacher and choir pianist.
• We paid off our car and became debt free!
• Our first night apart.
  
• The first Burgener family reunion - a rousing success.
• Another fun Sanders reunion in Salmon, Idaho.
• Adopted a new "cousin" and good friend.
• Kylie celebrated her first year of working at ThomasArts in September, after surviving a pretty hairy lay-off this summer.
• Landon recieved excellent grades in all of his classes and completed his first field camp.
• Went through 3 cell phones (thanks for your patience, Dad).
• Welcomed home the last of our high school friends from missions, attended several weddings, and congratulated a few new arrivals.

2009 Expectations:

• Kylie will now attempt to survive the 6-year-olds in primary.
• Landon will whittle down his remaining required credits to 14.
• Dallin (Landon's little brother) will arrive home from Slovakia April 9.
• A new car? (Hey, it could happen)
• We'll fill out MANY internship applications, and might be up for another big adventure this summer if we are successful (or if Kyle hooks us up)!
• Our 5-year high school reunion in July/August.
• Looking forward to another round of family reunions.
• A rockin' vacation - TBD.
  
• Landon will take the GRE in October.
• Purchasing our plane tickets to Peru!
• Many more adventures together.

Here's to 2009! We hope it brings happiness to us and everyone we love.

Happy Birthday, Sister!

My sister's birthday is two days after Christmas, which might explain her obsession with that holiday! We were lucky enough to have the whole family still in Idaho for the celebration. My sister and I are 6 years apart in age, and growing up we weren't that close. She was almost in high school by the time we moved to Rexburg, and went to college and then left on a mission when I was still in Jr. High. Sometime after her mission, we started hanging out a lot. We begain calling each other "sister," as a joke from the Bernstein Bears.

When she'd been home from her mission for a couple of years, I went to Provo for a semester of school. Abby was living in Provo at the time, teaching at the same school she does now. We had a blast hanging out together all summer. She was engaged, so I also got to know Nick. Now we're living in Utah about 30 minutes away from each other, and we've become best friends. We often have Sunday dinner together, or "parties" where we periodically steal each other's cable. We babysit Stella often, they make us dinner and let me stay over when Landon goes out of town for field trips. Living by my sister has been the best part of our move to Utah.

Abby is exactly the kind of person I would like to be; beautiful, driven, intelligent, kind, very healthy - hence the cookbook we gave her for her birthday (we tease her about this, but secretly I'm jealous), a wonderful mother, a great teacher, crafty, a fabulous decorator and dresser, and an all-around fun sister! She's also very family-oriented. She's the one who always gets the siblings together for parties, thinks of nice things to do for our parents, and keeps us all in touch. I really appreciate all that she does for me and Landon, and for the whole Jackson family. Happy Birthday Abby! We love you tons!

Thanks Elizabeth!

My Burgener mom gave me this beautiful shelf for Christmas. I'd been looking everywhere for something exactly like this to fill a big hole in our living room, but couldn't find anything I liked or that matched. She painted it and added the hooks herself. It's GORGEOUS! Thank you so much!

A Good 'Ol Fashioned Christmas

Jackson Family 2008

Whew. Christmas was amazing this year. The Burgeners are back at work/school after a well-deserved, unprecedented 12 day vacation. We had such a fabulous time with both of our families; great food, late-night 80s movie marathons, games, food, sleeping late, food, staying up till 1 a.m. almost every night, enjoying each others' company for more than 2 hours a day, and more food were just a few of the things we loved about our break! Please enjoy the following photo essay of our trip to Idaho and back.

It all started with a Christmas Eve feast - Jackson style.

Passing on timeless traditions to Stella...

Who promptly found a strange fear of Santa Claus. Here she is trying to see if he's coming to get her (We have to confess that this fear may not have been helped by Nick, Landon and Josh).

Economic crisis what?

Happy, lazy Christmas "morning," it was probably 9:00 in this picture. Notice we haven't opened any presents yet. Love Jackson Christmases!

Stella with her purple snake - this is the only thing she wanted for Christmas.

Christmas was followed by many lazy afternoons; some of which we spent building Jenga towers...

Bowling...

(Kylie kicked Landon's butt!)

And other activities, not picture worthy, since we mostly watched a lot of movies. We were COMPLETELY spoiled! Kylie got some"cute puffy boots," a pearl necklace, two seasons of Gilmore Girls, and a CD player for the kitchen! Landon got the original 3 Star Wars movies, a new jacket, lots of new clothes, art supplies, and a popcorn popper! We also got lots of movies, books, treats and toys. The Jacksons gave us a TON of much-needed food storage and a cupboard to put it all in, and the Burgeners gave us some fun things, too, including a new shelf for our living room, new shoes for both of us, and a new book for Landon. Thanks everyone, for the best Christmas ever!