Gary's College Life

Proposing to Sarah

2009-05-06T15:30:00.001-07:00

The highly anticipated proposal pictures are here. Julie helped quite a bit (as the not-so-wicked witch) by taking Sarah on her quest to turn from a mermaid to human. She also stuck around to take some pictures after she brought Sarah to me.

Yes I did get down on one knee.

This is our candle lit dinner, the picture is kinda dark but it was really good.

(Special thanks to Julie for taking the pictures, driving Sarah around, and the awesome photoshop work and to Wendy for helping me cook the dinner.)

2009-02-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

My roommate and I participated in the pond skimming competition at BYU-I last Thursday. We got to choose fun costumes which are shown below in the picture. Pond skimming involves skiing/boarding down a hill and then trying to skim as far as possible over a pond of water. There were quite a few wipe outs and some of the boarders made it all the way across. My roommate's wipe out was pretty good whereas I didn't really have a wipeout so it was kind of anti-climatic. It was a lot of fun though. If you want to see the video its posted on YouTube at this link:
Pond Skimming (Ethan & Gary)

Christmas Break

2009-01-11T10:12:00.000-08:00

Well I got a wonderful surprise this new years. My parents helped fly Sarah up to visit us for four days before the end of the break. It was a lot of fun to be able to show her Hauser Lake and Couer'd Alene. I only got stuck once and that was when I slid off the road out at Hauser. I think it made dad happy though cause he got to put his new truck to use pulling me out. We had an awesome time exploring and eating huge desserts at the Couer'd Alene Resort. It was so beautiful up there with all the record snow for December. Everything was white. With all the snow came a lot of work however. We had to shovel the roofs of all the buildings. The lower garage wasn't too bad but we had to do it twice cause it doesn't have enough of an angle for the snow to fall off. The house was interesting with dad falling off twice, luckily landing in the soft snow. I managed to stay on the roof the entire time but that made my job last longer cause I had to shovel all the snow instead of it sliding off on its own. Having learned our lesson we used a rope on the upper garage, which turned out to be a good thing. One side let go immediately when my dad started and the other side slid off about halfway through the shoveling leaving me lying on the roof holding onto my rope so I wouldn't fall off. All in all it was an awesome break, but I am glad to be back at school.

Julie, Emily, and I in the backseat of the car on the way to a Spokane Chiefs games.

Dad and I up on the roof working on the shoveling.

Sarah and I modeling some shades in front of the house.

Mom, Sarah, and I on the roof of the garage, with Jaime cleaning up down below.

A beautiful picture of the house in the snow.

2008-12-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone I have some new pictures to add to the blog. They are all of Sarah and I. Surprise surprise huh? This first one was taken at Lava Hot Springs south of Pocatello. We went and soaked in the hot springs to celebrate the end of the semester!

This next picture is down in Fruit Heights, Utah. After the semester ended I went down and spent a week with Sarah and her family in Utah. It was a blast and we got to spend a lot of time outside which I loved.

The above and below picture were taken up on the hill behind Sarah's House.
This last picture was taken outside Sarah's House right before I left to go home. We were loving the snow.

Dancing

2008-12-10T19:54:00.001-08:00

The end of this semester has been insane. I've been running everywhere trying to get my finals and last projects done. I ended up working straight through one night, not getting any sleep at all. You'd think I wouldn't have time for a girlfriend but I have. Sarah is so amazing, instead of being a distraction she has been a great support during this time. She has fed me and assisted me wherever possible. She even made me my own cheesecake with raspberry topping! I am so lucky. Anyways, the semester is almost done! I'm excited for the Christmas break. After this I only have one more semester and I'm done. The following is a picture of Sarah and I at one of the dances. We did the waltz, cha-cha, and swing!

Thanksgiving Break

2008-11-27T22:08:00.001-08:00

So I went home to Coeur'd Alene for the Thanksgiving Break. The following are pictures of some of the activities I've been involved in.

This is my dog Roxy on our hike in the hills behind our house.

A picture of Hauser Lake from on top the hill behind my house.

Emily and I at the bowling alley.

Jaime, Emily, and I

Me showing my bowling form.

My dad at the football game Thanksgiving day.

Our football team, my family and Josh. We won!

Big Judds

2008-11-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

Well it happened. A group of us went on a big group date to Big Judds. Before we went two of us decided we would take the Big Judd challenge. I spent the week preparing. I ate regular large meals, and the day of I ate a big breakfast then only drank water the rest of the day. To my surprise my preparations helped and I was able to down the enormous burger. I credit a lot of my success to Sarah who supported me the entire time. The following are the before and after pictures.

Sheep Falls and snow

2008-11-12T12:36:00.001-08:00

Well I took another trip out to Sheep Falls. This time it was just me and Sarah. We weren't expecting the snow we ran into. About the time we got to the top of the pass we saw snow all around us. There were a few tire tracks on the dirt road we took to get to the trail head and all they did was pack down the snow to make it nice and slick. Thanks to my superb driving skills however we made it to the trail head. It was a fun mile hike down to the falls themselves. I packed a bunch of chips, water, and oreos to keep us sustained. (Not that we really needed sustenance but I'll take any excuse to snack!) Here are some of the pictures I took:

Sarah borrowed my ski coat to help her stay warm. (The coat also make a good blanket to sit on while we were snacking.)

Here's a view from the trail looking at the top of the falls.

This picture was taken from some rocks above the falls. They're fun to jump off of in the summer!

A good picture of Sarah and I. (You gotta love long arms!)

Sarah posing with my car. I'm still pretty proud of my driving!

The Tetons!

2008-11-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. I just went on the most amazing hike in the Tetons. A group of four of us went out near Targhee Ski Resort and hiked up near a mountain called Table Rock. It was a gorgeous hike full of beautiful views and was a lot of fun. The following are some of my favorite pictures from the hike.

edit: Well I couldn't resist adding more pictures so here are some more from the hike...

(Just to explain I was giving the tree CO2 in this picture to help it survive.)

(I made that necklace for Sarah out of reeds!)

Some of the best summer pictures

2008-10-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken at Sheep Falls, north of Rexburg. It was quite a bit of fun jumping from the rocks into the water.

This picture was taken up in the teton's near the Grand Teton. We basically followed this stream about 9 miles up into the mountains.
This is from my trip down to visit the Barkers in Arizona. The picture shows my hardest face plant ever on a wakeboard. It was rather painful but still an amazing trip!
This picture is from the Peterson family reunion in Utah. We got the opportunity to do some wake surfing behind the boat. I was pretty excited as it was my first time.