1 Year and Counting

Jennie and I are ecstatic to announce our first wedding anniversary. It's been the best 366 (leap year) days of my life. I didn't know that my love for her could actually grow. Since our anniversary was actually on Sunday, we went out last night for dinner and a walk in town. We went to Romano's Macaroni Grill and had a great meal, then went to see the lights on Temple Square.




















In general, we just enjoyed the time together and away from home. Sunday was our actual anniversary so we had the chance to relax and be with my family.

I hadn't realized it, but my parents also hung onto the top of our wedding cake. So, we took it out of the freezer last night and let it thaw so we could eat some on our anniversary. Surprisingly, it was really good. It tasted, I think, just as good as it did on our wedding day.

Your Mom Goes to College!!! ...Yeah. So?

This weekend, Jennie and I had the privilege of driving down to Utah for my Mom's college graduation. That's right. My MOM just graduated from College this week with a 3.99 GPA. That's Summa Cum Laude. That's awesome! She went back to school while I was on my mission to get her teaching degree. She'd been a substitute teacher for several years before that, and just caught on fire. She's spent the next few years in school and now has her Bachelor's of Science in Elementary Education. Congratulations, Mom!!!!

We really enjoyed our time down there. We got to see some family that we never get to see. My brother Chad flew in from Texas for the occasion. His wife Erika couldn't make it because she's in community theater production of Cinderella. But they will both be coming for Christmas. We always enjoy getting together with all of my family.

This was the first time we've been home while Jennie's been significantly pregnant and it was a great trip. The ride back was one to remember, though. With ideal weather conditions, a drive from Fruit Heights to Rexburg, or vice-versa, usually takes about 3 hours. We left home about 7:30 pm, having originally given up hopes of getting home for Sunday because of a few snow storms. But, Jennie was supposed to be playing Violin for a piece in the ward Christmas program, and I was supposed to accompany her. We had to make the drive.

Driving from Utah up until about 20 miles into Idaho was a dream. Nothing at all, except a little fog going over Malad Summit. After that, though we got hit with several snow storms that made us slow down to about 45 mph, and we didn't dare take it any faster. It was slow going for a long time, and we didn't get home until about midnight.

But, overall, it was a good weekend. We can't wait until we go home next weekend and get to stay until the 29th! That's well over a week off work. Yippeee!!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Well, much to our dismay, our Thanksgiving break is over. December is here. That means Christmas time! Thankfully, though, it's only another two crazy weeks and the semester is over. It's crazy how quickly the time flies by.

As of tomorrow, we'll have 120 days and counting until our little baby is born. We're so excited. It still seems, though, that it's all a dream and that April will never come. We'll probably feel a little differently once the new year comes.

I suppose all we can do right now is just be grateful that we're happy and healthy and the Lord has blessed us immensely. We have great families, friends, and an awesome ward. What more could a young couple ask for?

Love to all!

Turkey, Baby Bumps and Bowling

We hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. I know we certainly did. We had originally planned to go to Wisconsin to spend time with Jennie's family, but it didn't work out. So, we decided to stick around here and spend the time with my Ostermiller side of the family. Which was fun.

The Ostermiller side of the family is rather large. i.e. Jennie is the 131st addition to the family. That's BIG. I think we're up to 140-something now. There were just over 60 people present for our Thanksgiving feast yesterday. That's a LOT of food. Lot's of kids running around. Good times.

So, for Jennie's mom's benefit we've been asked to post a picture of the "Baby Bump." Here it is.
That thing sure is growing insider her. The doctors have told us that the baby is now about 10 inches long, and weighs just over a pound. We're just so excited.

We also got invited last night by some friends in our ward to go bowling with them. It was funny that on "Turkey Day" I got my first ever Turkey in bowling. That's right. I threw three strikes in a row. I was on fire last night. I don't know exactly why. But it was, without doubt, the best I've ever bowled. Actually, if I were to be completely honest, I had some help from the bowling alley. The guy's lane kept getting caught up. I on the second strike of my turkey, I actually had three shots at it because the mechanism behind the pins kept getting jammed. But all of my other strikes were legit. My score for the first game (with the inadvertent help) was 170. My second score was 168. I only missed about 6 pins and had four strikes in the second game. Up to the 9th frame, I'd only missed three.

It's a Boy!!

We're very excited to announce that we had our ultrasound today and we're having a bouncing baby BOY!!

If you look closely at the picture, you can see all his facial features. He's got an Ostermiller nose.

It looks like the due-date is still April 1st. So we're still looking good.

A Brief Update

Well, Jennie is now 19 weeks along, and we're super excited to find out what the baby will be. We find out officially on Nov. 20th. So far, things have been going great.

Jennie often says that she wishes she would be showing more. She's still in that in between stage of the pregnancy where if you look close enough she looks pregnant. But she says she'd prefer to show more so that it's blatantly obvious and people don't have to wonder.

We're pretty sure she felt the baby kick for the first time a little earlier this past week. We're not 100% certain, though, because neither of us have felt it before. She described it as almost a little flutter in her stomach but it was pretty low down.

The weather here in Rexburg has finally started to turn cold. It seems Mother Nature has finally made up her mind and given us some winter-like weather. We've had some snow once or twice, but nothing that's stuck around for more than a day.

We had a great Halloween and participated in the Halloween concert. The theme was "Pirates of Madison County." I know. It's a little lame-sounding, but it was fun anyway. The concert was drastically shorter than last year where they tried to cram way too much into it.

The basis of the concert was that Captain Hook (the conductor) had enslaved the orchestra as his crew and he'd found a treasure map that allowed him to dissaparate and apparate where a treasure was by playing the right song and playing it well enough. I was the "tin-eared" trombonist that "couldn't even read the notes on the page." We all know that's a lie. But, apparently, my character thought the notes were "more like guidelines." The captain tries to get me to walk the plank, but I trick him out of it.

My parents and little sister were nice enough to drive up for the concert on Halloween (Greg, you missed out). We had a great time and they even spent the night in our tiny apartment with us. It was kind of fun.

Anyway, everybody will be hearing from us soon with a very important announcement. I'll keep my hopes hidden on the matter, but we'll be excited no matter what the turn out.

Wishing everybody well. Have a great week!

Our Current Situation

While I'm not thrilled about our nation's choice in it's President, I'm actually not all that surprised by it.
Barak Obama really is a good guy. I know he's a family man, a devout Christian, and he'll do his best to run the country as he deems appropriate.
I can't help the fact that he's a little more liberal than I would like, but, when I think about it, neither of the candidates would have been my first choice.
So, here's to four interesting years with our nation's first black President. That's a change that I'm actually somewhat excited about.

Irks, Excitements, and Reasons to Graduate Quickly

Hello to all. It's been about a month since I've gotten on here and written anything. A little minor thing called EDUMACATION keeps getting in the way.

Anyway, the reasons for today's post are three-fold. I wish to express my annoyances with recent things, my excitement about Jennie's and my life, and other things.

Recently, I've been very upset with my wireless phone provider. This past May, I renewed my contract with them and purchased a new phone, an LG Chocolate (the first version). The second generation of Chocolate had already come out, but this one was an approved, pre-owned version, and it was only 50 bucks.

By the time August came around, the touch-screen part of the phone had gone out on me, and without it, the phone is worthless. I can't do anything with it. I took it to the store in Idaho Falls to get it fixed/replaced. They replaced the phone saying it must have had some kind of software error. I accepted that and took the replacement. Little did I know that no more that two months later, the replacement phone would restart the starting process over and over and over again, without warning.

Since the loading process wouldn't stop, the phone never fully loaded. I was forced, yet again, to get a replacement Chocolate and lost all the contacts from my phone! Needless to say, I was fairly irked at this. I didn't want another Chocolate, but the phone company has a policy that they can only switch to a new model of phone after a certain number of times replacing the original model.

So, I gave my dad (the lead name on the account) a call. He pays the company for our family plan, so he gives this company a nice chunk of change every month. They called me up and offered to replace my 3rd Chocolate with a new LG Envy2, which I'm very happy with. All it takes to get what you want is pulling a few of the right strings.

Last Chance Before School

Well, as a last-resort to try and get out of town before school started, Jennie and I decided to invite our friends, Mike and Courtney Hokanson to go to Yellowstone with us and make a day trip out of it.

It's kind of been a tradition for me over the last several years to make a trip up through there every summer. How could we make this one any different, especially before the baby comes and we'll have to limit our traveling?

Our first stop was Mesa Falls in Island Park. The falls are always breathtaking and so fun to see. We'd gotten an early start, and so it was still very chilly when we got there. You can see Jennie was all bundled up in her jacket, and a hoodie, but I was only wearing a long t-shirt and another short-sleeved one one top. I was freezing.

Later on, we stopped at Big Springs and saw the huge fish there. It hasn't been as good recently as it was when I was a kid b/c of the stupid seagulls that have, somehow, found their way there.


Our drive up through Yellowstone was very pretty, but pretty uneventful.

One funny thing, though, is that while we'd stopped at Old Faithful to see the geyser, we got there about 40 minutes before it was supposed to go off. We ate our lunches and enjoyed some time chatting. After that, we froze to our bones waiting for that stupid thing to go off. We waited a half hour (15 minutes either way of when it was supposed to go off) and decided that if you've seen it once, you've seen it a bunch of times. So, we took off to more interesting things.

On the drive down the south exit of Yellowstone, everybody in the car was already pretty beat. So, while they slept, I drove. They missed a very pretty drive, though.

We ended up in Grand Teton National Forest where we hiked around the south end of Jenny Lake and to Cascade Falls. It was a beautiful hike, but Mother Nature couldn't make up her mind as to the weather. When we first started walking, it was cold enough that we could see our own breath and we could have used a good cup of hot chocolate. But after bundling up and walking for about 15 minutes, the sun came out and we were sweating up a storm. We had to carry our coats with us through the whole two mile hike. Suffice it to say, we were slightly annoyed.

After the hike, we were completely famished and HAD to have something to eat. We'd wanted to wander the stores in Jackson Hole for a little bit, but decided that eating was more important. And, with Jennie pregnant, it's better to take the food.

We had an awesome dinner at Bubba's Barbeque. I swear they have the best beef brisket in the world.

On the drive home, though, I asked Mike to drive the rest of the trip b/c I was running on maybe 3-4 hours of sleep. I didn't sleep well the night before. One of those "little kid on Christmas Eve" kinds of things.

Anyway, we loved our trip and can't wait to do it again next year with our baby. Love to all.

Big News!!!

Jennie and I found out near the beginning of the month that we were pregnant.

After going to the doctor this week and having our first ultrasound, we decided to make it official among friends and family. So, here's our first baby picture.

When we were filling out all the paperwork that needed to be done for insurance applications, etc., we were asked to list a due date. We hadn't been to the doctor yet, and so we weren't quite sure what to put for a due date. We did some quick math and figured it would be near the end of March or beginning of April. So, we listed April 1st as the date for our baby to come.

Lo and behold, the doctor told us April 1st is going to be our due date. MAN!, we're good.

A Weekend Away

So, despite the fact that this has been a relatively uneventful summer, Jennie and I have had a few opportunities to get out of Rexburg for a day or so.

On Aug. 2nd, we were up at 3 am so that we could drive to Boise to attend my best friend Mike's wedding. It was a beautiful drive and a beautiful day. I kind of liked the fact that there was little to no traffic on the highway at 5 in the morning.

I should mention that, since we were going to be driving on a relatively deserted highway, I had the bright idea to bring a small 1 gallon jug of gasoline, just in case. Little did I realize that the fumes from the gasoline would get out from the can, and cause us both to be very nauseous. Jenny, especially, was feeling very green.

Once we got to Boise, we had a little trouble getting into our hotel because we were there at 10:30 am and the real check-in time was supposed to be 3 pm. The wedding was at 12:30, and we were supposed to be there at 12:00. Suffice it to say that we were a little bit panicked because we had been driving all morning and didn't exactly look our best.

We drove around for a little bit to make sure that we could find the temple from our hotel. It was only about a 6 minute drive. The desk manager at the hotel pulled a room from her sleeve and got us in so we could change and get to the wedding.

When we got to the temple, we went right into the waiting room. Courtney's Grandfather was a sealer, and gave a wonderful ceremony. I've known Mike for a long time, and I've never seen him so happy. He and Courtney both were radiant.

We had a great time and really enjoyed the festivities after the reception at Courtney's house. I did my usual thing with helping to decorate the car. I've had years of experience and really had quite the finesse the job required.

The drive back to Rexburg went without any hitches, and we were glad to be back so we could take a nap and really get some rest.

Happy 4th of July

HAPPY INDEPENDANCE DAY!


I hope everybody had a wonderful and safe 4th of July.

This weekend we took some time off to come home and spend a few days with the family. Greg, (little brother) is the Squad Leader for the Sousaphones in the High school marching Band. You can see his face through the flute player's arms right in the center.

Otherwise, we just kind of chilled this weekend. My family just bought Rock Band for the Wii. It's super fun. I'm starting to get good at the drums.

The fireworks this year were pretty good.
Sadly, my little camera doesn't handle dark pictures very well.


We actually got to see two shows. Kind of.

While we were sitting on the grass of a stake center here in Kaysville, we could see Lagoon's fireworks show off in the distance.

The show started off with the Star Spangled Banner, and followed with "Coming to America" by Neil Diamond. Celine Dion sang "God Bless America." I always found it ironic that she would sing that song when she's from Canada. Oh, well.


We're looking forward to a great day tomorrow where we'll be going to the car show in the morning while the girls go shopping. Then, in the afternoon, we'll all meet at Willard Bay to go boating.

Love Everbody, and GOD BLESS THE USA!!

Scott's Favorite Cars

I've been taking a collection of some of my favorite cars over the past year or so. Most of them are Mustangs, but there's some great cars here.

1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454

1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 428 Cobra Jet

1965 Chevrolet Impala

1970 Dodge Charger R/T

1970 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

1969 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500KR
(KR means "King of the Road)

I'll probably be going to the Cache Valley Cruise-In tomorrow in Logan to get a glimpse at a few more cars. I'm super excited.

Eagerly Waiting

Things are changing rapidly around here where the time flies faster than we can keep up with.

For the most part, Jennie and I are keeping busy with classes, and work and just trying to enjoy the summer time we have together before anything else happens. We came to the realization that this may very-well be the last summer we have just us. We don't know how long anything will last.





We recently inherited some new furniture from some neighbors and now love the way our apartment is decorated. It's finally home.

Jennie took some creative liberties and did up the walls and bookshelves just in time for us to have some friends over for some gyoza. If anybody wonders what that is, invite yourselves over and we'll have some. It's amazing.

Otherwise, Jennie and I are eagerly awaiting our trip down to Utah this weekend for the 4th of July. A three-day weekend where we don't have any obligations. We're planning on going boating with my family on Saturday, and just enjoying the time off. We really do love where we live. We're far enough away from home where we don't have to worry about being in our family's hair, but close enough where we can come down for the weekend and make a nice break.

Also, we've become quite the movie buffs this past little while. Jennie and I recently rented Fool's Gold, Jumper, and 10,000 BC. Suffice it to say we were quite disappointed with all three of them.

Fool's Gold could have been a great chick-flick if it wasn't for the two-second spot in the movie where Matthew McConoughey get's flashed by a girl in a boat, and it actually shows it. We were blown away that it was allowed a PG-13 rating.

Jumper, while it was based off a really cool idea, was VERY disappointing. We were expecting it to be after the superhero theme of movies recently, but it was just about a young man who can teleport himself and gets himself into a lot of trouble by robbing banks, etc. They had so many opportunities to make it into a cool movie, but didn't. There was a scene where he's walking around in his apartment and sees a news report of people being trapped by a flood. We were totally expecting him to go there and help save the people. Instead he went partying in London. LAME!

10,000 BC was one of those movies that you keep waiting for it to get better, but it never does. I highly underestimated this movie. All I can say is I'm glad I got it through Redbox and only paid a buck for it.

Things Are Heating Up

Welcome to Rexburg...Last week we had a snow storm, this weekend, we'll be hitting the 90's. Why does the weather seem to have a mind of its own?

I've loved over the last couple days being able to go out running in the mornings. I'm slightly sunburned from doing these early morning runs. But I sure feel good afterward.

Jennie has started working this last week. She got a 100% on her training exam, and did very well on all of her calling training. We're really excited that she'll be working and have something to do at nights.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying our summer vacation. Love to everybody.

College Life

It's a rough life, but somebody (anybody who wants a decent paying job) has got to do it.

Jennie and I have discovered over the past couple weeks what a pain in the butt it can be to try to get through all the financial struggles that a young married college couple can have. Not only do we have to pay rent, make car payments, pay the utilities and pay for insurance, we also have to pay for a lovely little thing called education.

Since money was a little tight, Jennie and I decided to apply for a student loan through our bank thinking this would be a great way for us to just get through the summer without having to pay our expenses out of pocket. Like I said, this sounded like a great idea until we discovered a few minor details.

My parents had gotten us all pumped up about being able to apply for food stamps. My dad said, "I've paid taxes for the last 30 years so you could get food stamps." But, guess what--Apparently the state of Idaho thinks that Melaleuca is paying me a little too well to qualify for food stamps. We're starving with all the things we have to pay for but, still, we don't qualify.

It's things like this that are making me want to change banks. When we initially applied for the loan, it appeared that its main purpose was to act as a supplementary cash flow to make up the gaps that federal and school loans didn't make up. So, we, being the impulsive people we are, applied for the loan and even got my dad to cosign for us. About 5 days later, I was on the phone with the bank checking on the status of the loan. They told me that all they needed was my school schedule..... Wait. I was under the impression that I didn't have to be in school in order to get this loan. That's the whole reason we applied for this loan instead of any other one.

So, I went about trying to get registered for a class. I've been sitting in on a Chinese 202 class this summer with the intention of learning the principles so I can have my teacher waive it later and I can move on without having to pay for the class. I went to the registration office to try and get this worked out. I had some fees to pay, and once they were done, I tried again. My teacher couldn't add me to the class because it's MIDTERMS! Apparently they shut the system down for about a week so they can do grades. So, after talking to the registration office again, I decided to get registered for a simple 1 credit class in the second block. I contacted the bank with my schedule. They sent the check the next morning.

Upon receiving the check last night, we discovered the interest rate and the payment schedule. If we were to make the scheduled minimum payments, we would be paying (are you ready for this?) almost three times more than the loan is for!!!!!

Bank Man, thank you for your generosity in helping my wife and I through this hard time. I'm sure after you collect, you'll have no grief over losing a customer. BTW, we're going to get another loan at a much lower interest rate and pay you back. Sorry to burst your bubble. You're not getting that much money out of me.

Summertime in the Burg

Wow. I can't believe what I sloth I am at keeping this blog up to date. I just seem to be flat out terrible at it. Time has flown by so quickly with everything we're doing.

The semester ended without much excitement. Jennie was sent on tour with Symphonietta, a small strings orchestra, up through the north-western states. Over the two weeks (which seemed a lifetime in the eyes of two newlyweds) she performed in Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon. Most of the tour time was spent on the bus driving to the next destination. They'd pull off somewhere for lunch, take a tour of some boring museum, get back on the bus and drive to the performance venue. After performing each night, she'd meet their host family, go home with them, call me and then go to sleep. It doesn't get much better than that, eh?

Meanwhile, I was stuck at home. At the beginning of April, as I went into the housing office to renew our contract, I was informed that we wouldn't be allowed to because the school had decided to change its policy on married couples living in singles housing complexes. GOO!!! We were being forced out of our huge apartment that we got such a great deal on. So, while Jennie was on tour, I was responsible for moving our apartments. Luckily, on the same day we found out about us being kicked out, we found a much nicer, better place for about the same amount. But, let me tell you, moving apartments is no cakewalk.

Almost immediately after Jennie got home from tour, we set out on a trip back to Wisconsin for a wedding open house. I realize that we got married 4 1/2 months before, but it was the only time we could do it. We absolutely loved being back on Jennie's old stomping grounds, and my parents even flew out for the occasion. The Open House was on my birthday, which was supposed to go unnoticed by the guests, but somebody (my parents) squealed to somebody from Jennie's ward, and they then announced that it was my birthday and sang to me. I'll admit, I liked it.

Back on the home front, we're just trying to get through life one day at a time, struggling just like any other college students would. But, really, we wouldn't trade one moment of it. We keep growing closer in love and appreciation for each other, and that's the way it's supposed to be. There are so many things in this life to look forward to, and that's what we do. We are very much looking forward to the opportunity to become parents and start our little family. We expect it won't be long now before we have news of that nature.

Frozen Tundra

Right now, the latest from Rexburg is that it's colder than the inside of a freezer no matter what time of day it is. Just three days ago, the temperature when I left to go to class was -18* and my nose hairs froze within one minute of closing the door.
So far, Jennie and I have done pretty well adjusting to living together, but it's been just that...an adjustment. There are times when we scare each other to death because we wake up next to each other and don't expect the other person to be there. Apparently I snore. I didn't know that when I was single. My roommates never told me.
The thing, I think, that causes the most trouble between us, which trouble is relatively minimal, is the fact that our schedules only allow for very little time together. With Jennie being a music major, she has to be at the school almost all day because of practice time and homework that can only be done on campus.
My class load, on the other hand, is relatively light. I'm only taking thirteen credits, but I stay very busy because I work every weeknight until 10 o'clock. My schedule, in turn, makes it so we can only be together after 10. By that point, the only thing that we really have time for is to get ready for bed and sleep. I sometimes have to stay up a little later to finish up some homework. Jennie hates going to be alone. It's not the easiest thing to be married.
Otherwise, Jennie and I are doing well. Every day is an adventure and we try to find the good things in life. We do love each other, and that, I think is what makes our bad days good. I've heard people say that the first month of marriage is the honeymoon, and the second month is the hardest. I don't know how true that is, but we'll have to see over the next few weeks.

Wedding Pictures