ENGAGED!!!

IIIIIIIII AAMMMMMM EEENGGGGGGGAAAAAAGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDD!

Hopefully you will be able to decode my excitement:) Yes!! Brian proposed, and I said "yes" after a few other things - which freaked Brian out, and will be explained in the subsequent narrative:)

I was teaching my classes just like normal Thursday afternoon when the secretary came in with a note saying "Pick up your things and go to your car immediately". I was curious and so I did. When I got to my car a good friend of mine was parked behind me. She told me to get in. So I did. The next few minutes were a blur as I began to realize what was going on. We ended up parking by a nearby field. She told me just to wait. Eventually I saw a helicopter getting closer, and closer... All I could say was "He didn't...He didn't!" Yes, he did. When the helicopter landed he jumped out with a rose and ran over to the car to ask me if I wanted to go for a ride. I did:) We flew over the snow capped Mission mountains up to some waterfalls that B and I had hiked to earlier this summer. We were able to get right down to them and hover over the falls. He then proposed to me - the mushy words of his proposal I'll leave out for you:) and all I could say was "Brian, I don't know why you want to marry me!" But "Yes!" After our helicopter ride we drove out to Coeur d'Alene to eat dinner at the Olive Garden - my favorite restaurant:) This last weekend we ended up driving up to Great Falls and visiting one of my Grandmas (in the hospital) and then joining the celebration of my Aune grandparents' 60th anniversary!

My Surprise at the helicopter!

The beautiful Mission Mountains

Right after getting engaged - as taken by the helicopter pilot:)

Brian and I in front of the helicopter

what to say...

It appears as if it has been a while since I last updated my blog, and I have been hearing about it:) The main reason I haven't written is because my life has settled into a shade of normalcy (if there is such a thing). I am teaching Spanish, French, and coordinating the Gifted and Talented program part-time for the Target Range School. Although the change from teaching college aged to K-8 was a bit difficult at first, I am finding that I really enjoy teaching the younger students as well. I absolutally love how enthusiastic the Kindergarteners are about learning Spanish, and how much they love their teachers:) They are so proud of their ability to count to ten and tell me the colors in Spanish. The middle schoolers are a bit more reserved...you know...they have to keep up the cool facade. But they are also a joy to teach. I am also teaching ESL to adults at the Adult Basic Education Center - which is always fun and quite educational for me as well.

Outside of my job, I have been taking advantage of the last warmish days by taking nice long walks around the Missoula area. Brian and I are still determined to find new places that we haven't yet explored. We have found some really fun areas including a suspension footbridge, rock cliffs, and numerous semi-precarious fallen tree bridges. We also took a 15 mile bike-ride along the Hiawatha Trail on the Idaho-Montana border. Before you get too impressed, I must admit that the trail was almost all downhill - I am in no stretch of the imagination a bike rider:) However, the views from the tressels and trails were spectacular and the tunnels - including one tunnel more than a mile and a half long - were a uniqe chilly diversion. I do enjoy the autumn here in Missoula, as we do have a good attempt at color with quite a few deciduous trees. I try to do my best to forget just how cold I will be in less than a month:)

Here are a few recent pictures(Mostly from the Hiawatha Trail):

Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara

This may not come as news to many of you who know me, but I am highly susceptible to the travel bug… So, when I found out that I had the time to go to Mexico for a week this summer, and found a cheap flight, it was impossible for me to say no. My friend Christine also wanted to get out of Missoula for a while, so we decided to take a trip to Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara. We flew into Puerto Vallarta – via Seattle – and met up with my friend Choong Sil. We spent a day and a half hanging out on the beach and enjoying our vacation. It is the rainy season in Mexico and we ended up getting caught in some torrential downpours that left us seriously soaked. But, to me, that just added to the fun and adventure of the trip. What didn’t add to the fun of the trip was finding out Saturday morning that my passport had mysteriously “disappeared” from my hotel room the night before. Despite that, we continued on our trip to Guadalajara in order to see the old sights there and for me to go to the American Consulate. It was wonderful to go back to my church – Fuente de Vida – and see so many old friends and students:). Choong Sil and I then showed Christine around Guadalajara for the next couple days, and I spent some time getting a new passport. Our final day in Guadalajara we all rented a car and drove about three hours out to a village called Tapalpa which has a beautiful 105 meter waterfall down in a canyon on the outskirts of town. Everything was so green (much different than the normal tan colors) and it was a beautiful walk down to the falls. It was nice to show Christine something other than the tourist traps or cities in Mexico. But eventually Christine and I needed to get back to Puerto Vallarta to fly back to Missoula. It was a nice short trip, but I am also really glad to be back in Missoula – even if I seem to have brought the rain with me:).

A Thousand Words

This summer has been filled with my work at the English Language Institute (ELI) - which I absolutally love - and spending as much time as I can enjoying this beautiful country (and weather) with my friends and family....O.K. so most of my time has been spent with Brian, but he is a type of "friend" right? Anyway, the main activities of the summer have been hiking, running a lot, swimming, learning to golf etc. If a picture is worth a thousand words I'll give you an essay about my summer:

Brian and I on top of Wildhorse Island in Flathead Lake

(Jeni and Eli came down for Mom's Birthday:)

Dad and Brian fishing off a boat in Flathead Lake

My nephew Eli and I enjoying the boat ride:)

Snapshot of me running my half marathon (I made it in one hour and 52 min.!....Praise Him for my ability to run at all)

Brian and Hannah (his daughter) at Holland Lake Falls

Brian running a half marathon (Training for his full-marathon...which he completed in less than 4 hours!)

Fourth of July in the Mission Mountains. The waterfalls were spectacular!

Some ELI Students and I at Seeley Lake

Teaching an ELI student from Saudi how to Canoe...We capsized 3 times :)

Holland Lake (near the Bob Marshall)

Mission Falls

Mud fights on the Clark Fork

Christine and I at Alberton Gorge

Hannah and I at Bear Creek Falls

Brian and Hannah at Bear Creek Falls on Father's Day

Summer Fun?

Christine and I at Mill Creek Smelling the Lilacs in Spokane during the Lilac Festival - Yet another example of Brian's great dates:)

Brian and I at Post Falls

This last month has probably been one of the craziest and most stressful months of my life. With that said, I have to add that there has been – and still is – light at the end of this tunnel. There have also been some great moments to balance out the madness. Why have I been so stressed, you may ask? Well, I have been in the, apparently never-ending, process of revising my thesis for the last two months or so. I was preparing for my defense (which happened May 14th) and the grilling I knew was coming from my graduate committee. Thankfully, I made it through my defense (with the support of Jamie and Brian) and was even able to hold my own through the two and a half hours of questions that followed. I was told by one of my advisors that it was a good sign that my thesis caused such major discussions (and a few disagreements:)). At the time, however, I felt like the proverbial ant under the magnifying glass. With that done I have been able to focus on my post-defense revisions (which have been a lot more time consuming than I expected). In other areas of my life, I have been trying to figure out what in the world I will be doing here in Missoula for the next year. Thankfully, I was offered an ESL teaching position for the summer on campus at the English Language Institute. I love working with international students and have just been getting into the swing of things here in the last week. What the fall holds? I don’t know, and I am so glad He is in control…
Speaking of this last week. ..My little brother Brett married a wonderful woman, Amanda, this last weekend! Brian and I drove to Bozeman late Thursday night and spent the next four days in a crazy whirlwind of family and friends. Poor Brian having to meet (and attempt to remember) so many of my relatives! My family isn’t small:). He did a great job, however, and managed to gain the approval of everyone he met. In fact, my mom might be willing to trade me in for Brian (he is taller and can reach things in the kitchen). Anyway, the wedding was beautiful in spite of, or partially due to (I can’t decide), the buckets of rain pouring outside. The bride was radiant and had on the most stylish wedding dress I have ever seen. We ate good food (my grandma made her famous wedding mints – one of the greatest reasons to get married:)), took a million pictures, danced, and generally had a blessed time. The rest of the weekend consisted of pinochle, food, family, miniature golf with friends, running a nature trail to Pete’s Hill, Indiana Jones, (have I said food, pinochle, and family?) and a finale of Lewis and Clark Caverns for Brian and I on our way back to Missoula. Great times were had by all…
Now I am just one day away from turning in my final version of my thesis. Sure, I should be working on that right now, but I have to wait for my committee chairman to give me final suggestions before I can do anymore work. The sky is blue, however, and the weather is getting nicer and nicer… It promises to be a beautiful summer – and I intend to enjoy it for all it is worth. Have I mentioned that the lilacs are in full bloom? With all that said I believe I will head out for a run this evening (so I can continue my training for the half marathon).

Brett's Wedding to Amanda Benz (now Aune:))

Brian and I at Lewis and Clark Caverns:

Spring Fever

Friends and Fun at a Newsboys Concert
Jamie and I at the Crusade Fellowship Dinner
Brian and I, Jamie and Rob

I have not been very faithful in keeping this blog up to date with all the happenings in my life. Partially due to the fact that there hasn’t been much going on, and partially due to the fact that I have so much going on. Perhaps some of you can sympathize with me in those sentiments. Anyway, this last month has just flown by. I had a week long spring break after spending Easter with my family in Bozeman. However, my spring break was mostly filled with work on my thesis and quick day trips with friends to little places around Missoula (e.g. National Bison Range, Jerry Johnson Hot Springs, Phillipsburg Candy Store etc.). I still managed to have a great time in spite of my inability to find a warmer climate (and record low temperatures). Since then I have continued to immerse myself in my schoolwork in hopes of finishing my thesis and defense before my brother’s wedding at the end of May. God willing, by then I will be much more relaxed and will have a better idea about what I will be doing with myself once school is over J. Although I have been mostly focused on my school lately, I have still had time for some “vacatión moments” (as Brian calls them). An example of this was with the Newsboys and Rush of Fools concert that came to town last week. It was just a nice time with friends. Also, the weather is getting better so I have been able to go on some nice little hikes around and we have even had some BBQs! I love springtime/summertime activities!!! Just one more thing to say: Bring on the lilacs!

Doesn't it look like Spring Break?:)

Jerry Johnson Hot Springs in Idaho with Amanda and Christine:)

Texas Trip:)

A pic of Brian and I from our condo after a wonderful night out(complete with dinner and dancing on the beach:)!)

Some sand dunes on Padre Island

Sunset from Indian Pier

Horseback Riding on the Beach!


Brian and I on Padre Island

Taking a riverboat tour of San Antonio

Carriage Ride down by the Alamo

The Alamo

This semester has gotten off to a busy and eventful start. One of my most recent highlights was going to Texas with Brian. As Brian has tons of time at work to play on his computer:) and I am too lazy to write another discription about our trip... I'll let Brian tell you the story from his perspective. Don't worry...I read through and made sure that he didn't make too many crazy exaggerations:)

Our Blessed trip to Texas:
The trip started early Thursday morning (4:30am). Now flying stand-by, I’ve recently found out, is an adventure. We ( Kennetta Kathleen Aune and I ) didn’t make our 6:30am flight so we went back and took a nap, and since there was no room for us on the 11:00am flight we got some gyros for lunch and were able to get on the one o’clock flight to Salt Lake City. Here is where it got a little interesting… We had missed our morning connection and they told us the evening flight didn’t look good. So we played cards, walked around, and trusted that God was in control. It didn’t matter if we had to stay in Salt Lake or not, we were on vacatio’n (you have to say it with a French accentJ or at least a partly French accent). Amazingly enough they had room for us on the flight, so we were on our way to San Antonio! I had called the rental car place and told them that we were going to be late and they told us they could hold our reservations until midnight. However, we got into San Antonio a little after 11 and the rental place was closed. Thankfully, there was one rental place open and we were able to get a car for only a few dollars difference. Now we had a two and a half hour drive to Corpus Christi TX. We grabbed some Jack n’ the Box ( Kennetta’s first time) and started driving. We got to our condo at 3:30am. We were tired but had to take a quick walk on the beach. We got up about 9:30 the next morning and stood on our balcony staring at the ocean and thanking God for bringing us to this beautiful place.
The next morning we slept until about ten and then decided to go for a drive down by the ocean. As we were enjoying the views I made a quick right and found that we had just passed one of our vacatio’n requirements. We got out of the car and walked over to a 20+ foot statue of “surfing Jesus”. We took some pictures and decided to go get some lunch. Now this was no average lunch at T.G.I. Fridays, we found, as Kennetta would later call it “one of the perfect foods”: fried macaroni and cheese! After basking in the glory of God blessing us with fried macaroni and cheese we decided to go to Padre island, an 110 mile island that runs along the coast with 80 miles of national park. On our way to the island we passed a horse back riding stable and said that might be fun. When we got to the park we drove down to the beach took off our shoes and went for a walk. We stopped to take some pictures and a park ranger stopped by and asked if we wanted him to take the picture for us. He pulled his truck over took our picture and began to tell us about the park. He said about 4 miles down we could drive our car on the beach and that the horse riding stable we saw was a great place to take rides on the beach. We had just added two events to our itinerary. We went back to the condo, changed our clothes, and were off to ride horses. Now Kennetta was raised riding horses, but this was to be my first time on a horse. So they give me this big horse named Star and Kennetta gets a horse named Dr. Pepper ( now if you don’t know Kennetta’s view on Dr. Pepper, ask her and she will assure you that there will be Dr. Pepper in Heaven ). We went for an hour long ride on the beach. It was awesome I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to go again!
Again we decided to go for a drive by the ocean as the sun was setting I spied a p.o.i.( point of interest) called Indian pier. It went a couple hundred yards out into the ocean. We got some great pictures of us and the sunset. After our busy afternoon we were hungry and decided to go to the Olive Garden. There was a 45 minute wait so we walked over to the mall and found some size 5 shoes on sale (which is as difficult as trying to find my size 14’s on sale)! Dinner was great ( this turns out to be a theme for our vacatio’n J ). After dinner we went to Wal-Mart and got supplies for our picnic on the beach.
Saturday morning didn’t start too early, we went about a half mile down the beach to the U.S.S. Lexington, an aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. It was big and it’s interesting that 3000 to 3500 men were on that boat at one time. When we had gotten our fill of winding around the intricate decks and hallways of the ship we decided to head off to the beach again. It is a cool thing to drive your car down the beach, find a spot you like, pull over, and lay on the beach. As we were reading and catching some sun ( it was in the 70s I got a little sun burned J ) this nice old gentleman walked up and started talking to us. He told us about the sand dunes that were just behind us and about sea kayaks on the other side of the island. So, after he left, we decided to find these sand dunes. But you had to walk through some brush. He said he had been coming to the beach for 30 years and had not seen a snake but that they were there. So we spent some time finding a nice trail because we all know Kennetta’s love for snakes J . There is just something fun about jumping off of sand dune cliffs and rolling down the sand. After that, it was time for a swim. The ocean was a little cold at first ( about 70 degrees or so) but once you got in it was great. After some more time laying around in the sun we decided to go check out the sea kayaks. We got over there about 4 and the place closed at 5. There was a 2 hour minimum but the guy said we could take the double kayak out for an hour and he gave us a good deal. We paddled out and visited a few islands ( my first time and we were a little sore the next day J ).
After our kayaking adventure, we went back to the condo and got dressed up for a nice dinner. We found this nice steakhouse downtown. We had the filet mignon and au gratin potatoes for another great meal. Then we drove down to the beach and Kennetta got out her ipod. We each put a headphone in our ear and danced barefoot on the beach. The moon came out and it was gorgeous ( we got some good picturesJ ).
The next morning was Sunday and we had to get up and drive into San Antonio to go hear Max Lucado preach. On the way we had to stop and try a Whattaburger ( this is a restaurant that is everywhere in Texas and I don’t know where else, but it was good for fast food ). Max is a very good preacher with an amazing church. When we left the church we checked into our hotel rooms and got changed (shorts were needed as it was in the 80s ). Then we set off to the Alamo-which we found out started out as a mission before it was turned into a fort. By that time we were starving so we went into the mall and had lunch at Chili’s on the river. There was a band playing songs from the movie “The last of the Mohicans” (Kennetta’s favorite movie ). After lunch we decided to take a river boat ride through downtown. It is a very beautiful river that runs through all these shops and restaurants. After the boat ride we grabbed some milkshakes and went for a walk. On our walk we found a horse drawn carriage that takes you on a tour through downtown ( the horses name was Marshmallow). Next, we walked to the Tower of America, a 750 foot high tower with a restaurant and observation deck on top. It also had a beautiful water garden at the bottom. There was a fun 4-D movie about Texas we saw there too (good except for the part with the snake J ). It was a great view from the top but we were getting hungry. On our walk back downtown we saw this gazebo out on the grass all lit up. When you see something like that there is only one thing you can do, Dance! After a few minuets of dancing we remembered we were still hungry. So we found this good Mexican restaurant on the water and had dinner. After dinner we were serenaded by mariachi’s singing “Guadalajara”. We walked down to this Texas steakhouse on the water and had a piece of cheesecake in the shape of Texas. By now it was getting late and we had to be up at 5 in the morning to catch our flight.
The next morning the lines were really long but we were able to make it on our flight to Salt Lake City. When we got to Salt Lake we found out all the flights to Missoula were overbooked. This nice Delta agent suggested flying into Kalispell, and we decided that it was a great way to get home that day. So we flew into Kalispell and rented a car. We took the nice drive through Bigfork and stopped at this great little Italian restaurant. More good food, we didn’t want this vacatio’n to end but ultimately… it had to.
As you can clearly see, God continued to bless us whether it be through people on the beach or the airport, the gorgeous weather, or the time to relax and simply enjoy His creation.