Wonderful Time of Year

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! My family and I sure did. I do love this time of year. Its great to see all the family, even though we do live close to the ones here in Utah and see them often, but its still fun getting together for the holidays. Its also nice to reflect more on the birth of our Savior. I know I get caught up in the hype of this time of year, but I try to remember the true meaning of Christmas and not focus so much on the "worldy" things.
As some of you know, I am the Beehive Advisor in our ward. I'm loving every minute of it and I hope the girls are too! As a combined Sunday lesson the week before Christmas, us leaders told of our favorite Christmas story. It really helped me realize the true meaning of Christmas especially as I bore my testimony to the Young Women about that. That Sunday definitely helped me get more in the spirit of Christmas which I am very grateful for.

P.S. Sorry no pictures with this post! I'll update with them soon enough!

Honduras

I was able to go on another humanitarian trip. This time I went to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. It was such a great trip! I really enjoy serving others and going to see other parts of the world. It really is a great experience and both times I've gone, I've loved it. I met some awesome people and got a little better at my Spanish :) I was gone for Thanksgiving this year, but we had a nice banquet on Thursday and I was able to eat some turkey! As well as assiting dentists, this time they had me doing x-rays too for two days because those were the busiest days and the needed me mad x-ray skills! It was actually pretty fun. I'm sure the pre-missionaries hated me shoveing sensors in their mouths, but all of the them gave me smiles after we got their x-rays so that's good! I was able to go on two humanitarian trips as well. I went to 2 LDS members' homes and a children's cancer hospital. Both were great and made me tear up a bit. At the first members' home, I felt the spirit so strong and I think most of us were teary eyed. I definitely got to meet some special people. It's amazing how these people are so positive despite how broken their personal lives may be. Both families we met had family members with diseases and don't really have the money to get the help they need, but they were all so happy to see us and accept the gifts we had for them. To me, it seems like Honduras isn't quite as poor as Nicaragua. Both homes we went to had tile/carpet and other nice features, but the homes I saw in Nicaragua had dirt floors, no glass windows and no A/C. I really had a great time and hopefully I can go on another humanitarian trip soon! Enjoy the pictures!

Labor Day

I know this post is a little late, but I needed to update, so here ya go. We went to Antelope Island for Labor Day. It was lots of fun. I had never been there before and I really enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of Yellowstone with all the wildlife and by the looks of it. Here are a few pics of the day.

Our trip to Yellowstone

As a family we went to Yellowstone about 2 weeks ago and had a great time! None of us had been except my dad when he was in high school, so it was great to be able to go. Such a beautiful place! We saw buffalo, moose, bears, elk, bald eagles and plenty of chipmunks. It was really neat to see these animals in their natural habitat. We also went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center and got to see grizzly bears and wolves there. Seeing Old Faithful was also very cool. There are tons of little geysers throughout the park and we got to stop and see some of those as well. None of them went off like Old Faithful, but they steamed quite a bit and were very colorful. Yellowstone Lake was so pretty and HUGE! The water was pretty clear and also freezing cold, so we just enjoyed it on the shore. If you have never been to Yellowstone, I highly recommend it!

Funny story...as we were driving to Idaho to the condo we were staying in, I experienced a migraine. Now, I've never had one before so I didn't know it was a migraine until we got to our cabin and my dad got a little upset with me for driving while I had this migraine! So we stopped in Pocatello to get gas and have a quick break and almost as soon as we started driving again, my head started pounding and my vision was a little blurry. I thought I just looked into a bright light so that glare was in my eyes (kinda like when you look into the flash of a camera). So I turned up the air really high to see if that would help, but it didn't. So my vision gets even more blurry, but I could still see enough to drive. Then after 15 or so minutes of that, my peripheral vision in my right eye goes black. I couldn't see my brother in the passenger seat unless I turned my head. All this time I knew something wasn't right, but I had no idea what was wrong! I was also too prideful to pull over and let my brother drive. After awhile, my vision got better, but my head still hurt. As we got closer to the condo, everything got a little better, but I didn't realize that this migraine would affect my equilibrium and walking up the stairs was strange! When I told my dad what went on, he told me it was a migraine and that I should have let my brother drive instead of putting us in danger! Oops! I really had no idea what was going on, but I'm glad our guardian angels were looking out for us that day! Great way to start off a vacation!

Yellowstone

Old Faithful!

Posing next to some statues outside the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center

A gray wolf

Grizzly Bear!

Some yellow rock that Yellowstone was named from

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Yellowstone Lake

Just being us!

Who needs perfume?!

So as I was about to put on perfume today before leaving for work, I noticed a picture had fallen down on my dresser and I thought I'd fix it to stand upright again. As I was doing this, I knocked over one of those diffuser things (only this one didn't have reeds in it) all over my dresser and the front of me. I had to run to get a towel because I didn't know if it would ruin the wood or my shirt for that matter. So I keep getting this smell of something good (I forgot the scent of this thing) and I have to remind myself that it's me that I'm smelling! So much for perfume today!

Asking for help..again!

So my sister got a blog and is having some trouble and since I'm not so saavy yet with blogging, I thought I'd ask for some help for her. We can't figure out how to get her dashboard to say design instead of template. And also, her blog page is too wide and we don't know how to fix that either! So if anyone knows how to fix these problems, your input would be greatly appreciated!

Nicaragua Final Post

I know I'm a little slacker when it comes to posting sometimes, but these pictures are what's left of my trip to Nicaragua. I still think about that experience daily and how grateful I am to live in this country. Yes, it's the 4th of July, so I guess this is an appropriate post for the day :) The only person I knew going on this trip is Keri Corfield and she teaches sunday school in my ward and I admire her and her selfless service. She is a great example to me. Ever since I got back from Nicaragua, I've wanted to do more humanitarian trips and help more individuals like the ones in Nicaragua. This is Keri

Getting all cleaned up. It was amazing how fast all our equipment came down!

Pinata time! We had an extra pinata from our humanitarian visits and on our last day of clinic, we let the neighbor kids around the church have some fun

Our beautiful resort we stayed in for the last two nights there. It was right on the ocean and it was one of the prettiest places I've seen.

Court and I sunburned! We fried (at least I did) that last day on the beach!

Bre's Wedding

I hope she doesn't get too mad at me for posting some pictures while she is gone! Here are just a few from her wedding yesterday. It turned out to be a great day. It was pretty hot while we were waiting for her and Colby to come out of the temple, but the luncheon and reception were really pretty. I'm so happy for them and am excited to welcome Colby to the fam :)

The happy couple :)

Little, BIG Bro comes home!

My brother B.J. came home from his mission today. He served in the Canada Edmonton mission. I am so very proud of him for serving a faithful two year mission. He came home a spiritual giant, but still the cute brother I remember! My title to this blog indicates that while he is younger than me, he is almost a head taller than I am! It was so fun at the airport waiting for him to come down the escalator. When we saw him, there were tons of emotions running through our minds. It was so awesome to see B.J. after two years and see how he has grown spiritually (and physically). He actually grew a few inches on his mission! It took him a little while to realize what was going on and that he is home now. He still has his funny side to him and so it was easier for him to warm up :) I love my brother so much and am so glad to have him home. **Oh and we all wore red because it's his favorite color and its Canada's color..my one grandpa wore blue because he is a HUGE BYU fan and wants nothing to do with the color red**

This is a pic of him opening a present we had for him...my mom made a blanket with his old shirts! It turned out super cute

Nicaragua Part 2

These are some houses. Most of the houses have bars on the windows and doors. These houses are a lot nicer than most of the other ones we saw. A lot of them are right of the street like these ones.

My friend Juan. When I started speaking a little Spanish to him, he thought I was fluent so he just started rambling and I was lost! I had to tell him I didn't know a lot of Spanish and then he started laughing! He was a very polite young man though

Oh yes, they have a Pizza Hut

A Shell station! I had to take some pictures of American things. This is their gas prices in liters. So that is basically a dollar per liter of gas, which is like 4 dollars for a gallon here in the states.

Some of us girls outside the cancer hospital. And yes, this is what we looked like walking into the hospital :) Good thing the kids loved it!

One day we went to a kids cancer hospital. It was neat to go there and hang out with some of the kids. They loved us being there and it was great to bring smiles to their faces.

Courtney, Dr. Oman and I on our last day of clinic