Our Team - Fall 2010

This fall, we went up to the neighboring farms behind us to take group photos of our current team! We found a fun rustic looking building amidst grain silos and a train that made for a great backdrop in some great photos. Thanks to Sarah Mickelson for coming and shooting a few shots for us. We really appreciate it!

Family Home Evening!

Family Home Evening takes place every Monday night around 7pm. Your family home evening groups are assigned through your students ward. We encourage every resident to participate in your family home evening groups. It is a great way to meet new friends, future spouses, and feel the spirit is a family-like setting. There is much to do in Southeastern Idaho in the Fall. If you need any suggestions for your family home evening activities, please come see us in the office. We would be more than happy to give you some suggestions for fun activities. Thank you apartment 701 for the family home evening group picture. It has only been 4 weeks and we can tell you have made life long friendships already! Keep up the good work!

October General Conference

This last weekend we had the privilege of listening to the apostles and prophets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 180th semiannual General Conference.

 What a wonderful conference it was! If you were unable to listen to all sessions of the conference for whatever reason, we invite you to visit http://www.lds.org/ and read the messages. Each message was uplifting and inspiring. You will find great love, comfort, and joy in each message given to the members of the Church. If you need a good "pick me up" reading, conference talks are always a great choice!

FREE Kobari Beef at Panda Express

 Panda Express offered FREE Kobari Beef on Wednesday of this week only. We shared this great deal with our residents in an email sent out on Tuesday. As self proclaimed "critics" we are going around this semester and trying all these new places or new things we hear about. Because Kobari Beef is new, we figured we had better try it ourselves so we can critique it for you! This way, if you are going to hear about something new, you'll hear about it from us!

This is the Kobari Beef. Doesn't look as great as in the Panda Express advertisement, does it? To say the least, we were not pleased. It is a spicy mixture of red peppers, onions, some sort of green onions, and beef. The red peppers give  the Kobari Beef the greatest flavor. If you like red peppers, you will LOVE the Kobari Beef. Kobari Beef or not, Panda is STILL a great place to eat Americanized Chinese Food!

5 Buck Pizza

There is a NEW pizza shop in town. Rexburg has always been hot over "Craigo's Pizza", a pizza joint that has been here throughout the ages and is locally owned and operated. There has never been another locally owned pizza place that even attempted to challenge Craigo's. It has always been common knowledge that Craigos just had the best pizza in town. SO, we wanted to try the new 5 BUCK PIZZA place that just opened this Fall on Main Street, downtown Rexburg, Idaho. We wanted to see if they are going to be able to give Craigo's a run for their money AND this is what we found out...

The pizza dough is heavenly! If you are looking for nothing more than a homemade pizza, this is the place for you. The dough is fluffy, the sauce has a very strong tomato sauce flavor, they pile the cheese on really thick, and the pizza isn't topped with any spices. It is a very AMERICAN homestyle pizza. There isn't anything special about it. I don't think you can call it a restaurant, it's more of a pizza shop. It is very small. They do have two large flat screen TVs mounted on the only two walls in the shop that were showing the Monday Night Football game when we were there. Their production speeds were incredibly slow. So, unless you have a lot of time on your hands, 5 Buck Pizza may not be the place for you. For the money, I think that the Craigo's All You Can Eat Buffet is still the way to go. You are in and you are out with a full belly too! We'd like to know what you think?! Which pizza place do you prefer and why? Leave your comments here and let us know...

Autumn Sky

A couple months ago, we posted pictures of the smokey sky during the INL fire. However, the pinks, purples, blues, and yellows in the sky last night were simply part of the beauty of Fall in South Eastern Idaho! If you are on your way here, you are guaranteed to love it. If you are here, we hope you are enjoying the WARM, 80 degree, record high temperatures for the end of September in Rexburg. We will be sure to post more pictures of the beautiful autumn colors as they arrive!

Yellowstone National Park

On Saturday, September 25th, Yellowstone National Park offered FREE admission to all visitors. We shared this great deal with all of our residents via BYU-Idaho email. We hope you were able to take advantage of a fun day in the park and enjoy the beautiful colors of fall in Yellowstone.

It was fun to see the wild life prepare for the upcoming winter months. The elk were mating and bears were eating, trying to put on weight before hibernation. I am not sure where all the Bison were though. In all my times in Yellowstone, I have never seen so few Buffalo.  They too must be getting ready for the snow to fly. There will be one more "Admission Fee FREE" day this year on November 11th.

Fall has arrived!

We welcome the Fall with open arms in Rexburg. We have enjoyed such beautiful weather the last few weeks and we'll take all the good weather we can get here. In the meantime, the scarecrows have returned! Their job is the welcome everyone to the office/clubhouse with open arms, but be careful...there are ghosts in the office this year!!!! Watch your back.

A View from the Back Yard!

We were out inspecting the property the other day and happened to be on the Northwest side of Building 9. It was a beautiful day! Just over the fence, we enjoyed a spectacular view of the Rexburg LDS Temple. What a great opportunity it is to live just across the street from the temple!

Local Talent Goes Home

Our local talent from Idaho Falls, Idaho and fellow BYU-Idaho student, Ali Christensen and her sister Christina have been contestants on the popular America's Got Talent for the past few months. The pair sang their way into the Top 10 last week, but came to the end of their road on the show this week. The following performance is their final performance on the LIVE show that aired September 7th and just wasn't enough to put them through to the finals next week. Even thought their days on the show are over, they will be performing all over the nation on the America's Got Talent tour. Way to go Ali and Christina! We are so proud of you

Local Talent Update

Just in case you haven't been following America's Got Talent, we are posting Ali and Christina's (from Idaho Falls, Idaho) LIVE performance from last week. This performance put them through to the Top 10 to compete again LIVE on September 7th. Don't forget to vote for our local talent and fellow BYU-Idaho student!

When the students leave...

Everyone knows that summer is a time for upgrade, renovation, addition, and construction! However, in Rexburg, Idaho it is the SUMMER SESSION or six week break. It seems like the small town of Rexburg has been flipped upside down with projects going on everywhere you turn. Leave it to us to keep you up to date on everything going on here while you are enjoying your summer break! We drove around last night taking pictures of the all the changes being made in our community. If have haven't been to Rexburg yet, you are truly going to love it!

Our neighboring farm to the South began harvesting grain yesterday! This means there is a lot of dust and dirt in the air, but it sure makes for a great photo!

SUNROC, a building material store just opened its doors to the public during the Summer session. We welcome them to REXBURG! This should give BMC West some competition again.

We don't have very many great places to go for breakfast here in Rexburg. We don't have Denny's or IHOP. We DO have the Flap Jack Shack though! They serve the best breakfast in town now. BYU-Idaho students will love the Flap Jack Shack. It will be a homemade breakfast every morning!
There are many historical buildings in Rexburg. The building pictured above is the Westwood Theater on Main Street receiving a much needed face lift!

Fat Cats, an entertainment company out of Utah, announced in May or June that they were buying out the REX. The REX was Rexburg's largest entertainment center with arcades, movie theaters, a bowl alley, and pizza place. A rumor has spread that Fat Cats will also be adding laser tag and a couple other things. Until then, they have added color and pizazz to the outside of the building that screams "COME HERE" as you pass. The neon lighting is visible from 2nd East Street now, drawing a lot of attention to the "hidden building" behind Cold Stone Creamery and Deseret Book.

The most anticipated project of them all is the future aquatic center located behind Kmart next to the railroad tracks and Rocky Mountain Power. The pool is scheduled to be finished by Memorial Day 2011. This project is long over due! Rexburg NEEDS a place for everyone to play in the water. We currently have a children's splash park that is often overrun by college students because there is nowhere else for the students to play or swim. True, there is an indoor pool on campus, but the students want to be outdoors. The new aquatic center will also offer a lazy river! Nothing better than a break from your studies on a lazy river!

Tri-State Tire is located just behind Broulims. It has always appeared to be a "run down" tire store that you would be afraid to take your car into for work. The new face lift will not only draw more attention, but should bring in MUCH more business. They can give Les Swab and Clair'n Dee's a run for their money now!

Roads are closed here, there, and everywhere for construction. Not necessarily construction on the roads, but for near by construction taking place. This particular street is located just outside of Hemming Village and The Pines apartment complex. Hopefully they will be finished with this project in time for all the students to return on September. When the students are in town, this is actually a very busy street to get to the BYU-Idaho campus.

Roads have been closed around the new auditorium for a couple years now. However, this is a new one. The road in front of Bunkhouse, Royal Crest, and Carriage House is now closed for an undisclosed amount of time. This will take another big chunk of parking away from students who depend on parking around campus.

Rexburg is an "ever changing" little town. Rexburg misses the students when they leave, but welcome the quiet time to be able to renovate, remodel, and build around the city! The upgrades to Rexburg truly do make it "America's Family Community!"

Angels in Town

The Blue Angels came to town July 24th and July 25th for the Idaho Falls Blue Thunder Air Show. There were nearly 38,000 spectators in attendance on Saturday and another 12,000 on Sunday. The Angels wowed the crowd for approximately 45 minutes concluding the 4 hour long air show. Anyone traveling Highway 20 or I-15 witnessed the breathtaking aerobatics as well. It was really hot out, food was overpriced, vendors ran out of water and traffic was a nightmare. Nevertheless, it was a pretty good show. See for yourself in the photos below!

White Glove & Removal

After everyone checks-out, the work is just beginning for us! Our white glove inspections take nearly 5 hours and cleaning out apartments (doing removal) normally takes us 2 days. At the end of the Spring semester, we rent 2 extra large dumpsters for our residents to dispose of all their belongings. We have found that is we provide them a place to throw it away, they will! By the time we are done with removal, we fill these dumpsters to overflowing.

Unfortunately, we also spend the weekend asking "dumpster diving" families to leave the property.

Not only is dumpster diving unsanitary, it is also a huge liability. Especially when we find little children in the dumpster. Many dumpster divers get real angry with us when we ask them to leave the property. We are simply trying to keep everyone safe!

Movin' Time!

The end of the semester is always bittersweet! Everyone is so happy to be done with school and excited to go on vacation, but we always hate to see everyone go. During the breaks from school, Rexburg becomes a "ghost town". Things are so quiet around here!

Whether you are going home while you are off track, moving to another complex, or just going home for the break, please be safe! We hope to see you all again soon. For those of you moving on in life, we wish you the best of luck. Thank you for making Jordan Ridge your home away from home!

Workout!

The Jordan Ridge Clubhouse is the perfect location for a great workout! The Insanity workout is the most recent workout featured in the clubhouse. A group meets everyday around 4:30pm. We welcome you to use our clubhouse for your workouts as well! It's private, quiet, and comfortable! You can take a virtual tour of the Jordan Ridge clubhouse on the "future residents" blog page.