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

Arizona

Last week I went to Arizona to visit some family and friends. I was born in Mesa and I've always loved going back. I really get so excited to go there! I went down with almost no plans except to visit my friend Heather and ended up being busy all the time! It was good though and I enjoyed seeing all the people I miss and love down there. The weather was AWESOME! I love the warmth (or I guess I should say HEAT) of the Arizona sun. I was not too happy about coming back home to not so warm weather, but luckily it's finally started to heat up here. One of my mom's cousins is a professional photographer and he asked if he could take some photos of me. It was fun doing the photo shoot and I'm really happy with the shots he got. I was nervous at first because I didn't know what to expect or what to do, but he made me feel comfortable so it turned out great. Thanks Bruce!

Here is the link to his blog so you can view some of my photos along with other great ones he has taken:
http://www.bkbarnesphotography.blogspot.com/

Pictures of Nicaragua Part 1

Our hotel room. We stayed in a Hilton Princess Hotel. It was very nice & I'm glad we didn't have to rough it when it came to our sleeping quarters!

Another favorite person from this trip. This is Courtney my roommate. We met on the trip & just hit it off. I was lucky to have such a great roomie & friend there! We were on our way to church in this photo.

This is just outside our hotel. Graffiti was a common thing to see everywhere we went.

Dr. Oman and I in action!

Two of my favorite people on this trip. And yes, the first day in clinic we did not have A/C so that is why we look so wonderful! (mostly just me)

A form of transportation

My favorite picture of the whole trip. After sacrament the first Sunday, we handed out gifts to all the kids in the ward. I think this pictures captures what all those kids felt as they received their gifts.

This kind of shows what the houses look like. It was very humbling to see their way of life and compare it to my own.

My little friend Jose. We gave him those animal block you see in the lower left & he loved playing with them so much. It was so great to see the happines he felt. (Don't mind me in this photo-95% humidity & 100 degree weather does not do wonders for my looks)

This is the mall in Nicaragua. Pretty Americanized don't ya think?