Cant get a rainbow without a little rain!

Well, alot has happened since my last post, but that always seems to be the case! First off James brother Joey returned home from his mission! Yay more family :] Now theres just Alyssa (james sister) left to finish off her mission! Then a few days later there was 4th of July! I LOVE fourth of July, I mean who doesnt like a holiday that includes, sunshine, swimming, eating and best of all FIREWORKS?! We went with James's family on a hike that weekend and had a blast! Later that week we put an offer on a house here in stansbury and they accepted it!, now we're just waiting to close (Ill do a full house post on all those happenings after we close!) then James got a huge promotion at work to be a control room operator! I love my hardworking husband, he busted his tail for a year there while the other guys made fun of him for workin so hard, but now two promotions later he's livin the good life as one of two guys running the entire facility from his computer. I'm a proud wife! James and I were just chattin one night thinkin man, did we pay extra tithing this month or something because the blessings are just pouring out! jk, but we are definitly grateful for everything we have been blessed with.
 Of course, there is oppoition in all things, how would be truly experience joy without sorrow right? Well, I guess we needed something to contrast against all this "joy" because last week I was doing my normal drive between provo and stansbury and hydroplaned on the freeway and totaled our car. I am ok, luckily I was not seriously injured and just had to put up with a sore back and neck for a few days. Thank goodness James was not workin and he rushed to my rescue along with every police officer in a 30 mile radius...jus kidding...but like five of them pulled over and the officer helping me kept sayin "Ive got it covered thanks!" Of course I balled hysterically and everyone kept asking are you sure you aren't hurt? I kept responding...im really ok, Im just a cryer! After talking with the insurance and working out a few details everything is panning out very smoothly. The worst part of it all is that now I have to go car shopping again! One of my least favorite things. I hate it because no car salesman is ever completely straight forward with you. I just want to say to the right off the bat "look I know this is your job and you need to make money off me, im totally ok with that I just dont want to get ripped off" So the adventures begin!
After all of these happenings of course my young women lesson I taught today was on keeping an eternal perspective while overcoming opposition. I was like really Heavenly Father I didnt need a real life story just for this lesson. lol. Im grateful for my calling because it was the perfect thing to do this weekend.
A few quotes:

" Do all you can do and then leave the rest to the Lord. President Howard W. Hunter said: “If our lives and our faith are centered on Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, nothing can ever go permanently wrong."

“We cannot avoid opposition. The only question is how we will react to it. Will our adversities be stumbling blocks or stepping-stones”

Pretty Waterfall we hiked to!

Our lead hiker!

The boys!

Youth Conference 2011!

In our ward I have served in the Young Womens program for about 9 months now. I love it! I love all of my girls and the friendships I have made with all those I associate more closely with. One of the many fun things that I was able to participate in was going to Youth Conference this past weekend. The ward had planned to go to the Bishop's lakehouse in Delta, UT and I knew it was going to be a blast. I invited my little brother to come out and go with us as well. We left Thursday morning and drove down there. Once we arrived we went out on the lake, played fear factor, more jet ski and tubing rides, then a sing off on the singstar game. Friday we were out and about all day with the service project, more lake time, volleyball, scavenger hunt, testimony meeting, capture the flag and smores. Saturday we hung out for a bit then cleaned up and came home. It was a fun filled weekend and the kids all seemed to have a blast.
On friday I was able to try wakeboarding (which I had never done before). I was a little nervous and watched closely as a couple of people went before me. Then, I decided to give it a go. I tried to remember everything everyone had told me to do and I got up on my first try. Needless to say I didnt stay up for very long, but when the boat pulled back around they said sorry we only told you how to get up, but not what to do once you actually were standing becuase we didnt think you were going to get up on your first try! I then attempted a few more times and got up again for a bit longer. It was so fun and I definitely am determined to master it. Here are a few pictures from the fun weekend, I was really bad at remembering to take pictures.

Sit ups challenge

sit ups challenge finals

timer/drill sergeant at the sit ups station

scripture station

Origami folding station

winning team!

willow game - trusting in others

finally standing together

singstar!

waterballoon baseball

Officially and Adult!

Right after Heidi left I had to take finals for my spring classes. Finals were scheduled for my birthday and the day after, but luckily I only had to take them the day after my birthday. In the morning James left for work to just work a half day and I taught piano lessons till 1:30. My piano students were so sweet and brought me flowers and cards and we shared cupcakes. Then, James and I arrived home about the same time and got ready to go out for the night. He took me to one of my all time favorite places to eat -Outback Steakhouse. It was delicious...like always and I got my usual order the Alice Springs Quesadilla. I used to get the Alice Springs chicken which is very delicious and then when they  re did their  menu they offered it in a quesadilla taking it to the next level. haha Anyways, then James took me to the South Town Mall and said heres my wallet have at it. Now what kind of husband says that to their wife (the kind that knows their wife won't spend any lol), I know he's the best. Then, we met up with Jim & Juli and got some delicious Cold Stone. My two favorite places in the same day...pure bliss.
The next day I had to take finals all day which ended up going very smoothly. Friday rolled around and James was like hey we are going to get your birthday present today because I couldn't pick it out without you trying it first. He then continued to tell me I was getting a bike. He added, but it doesn't really make sense for you to get a bike and not me because you dont want to ride by yourself. I think James enjoyed my birthday as much as I did getting amazing steak and a new bike. Anyways, we drove to Walmart in Tooele and picked out some bikes. We were walking to the cashier to buy them and realized...welp we don't really have a way to get them home. We decided to be spontaneous and just ride them home to stansbury. So we ripped off the tags and hopped on our new bikes, flip flops and all and rode them home.

On our way to Outback



Birthday Cards!



New Bike!

Bike!

Alice Springs Quesadilla- cheese, chicken, bacon, mushrooms, tomatos and best of all the honey mustard dipping sauce!

Zippety-ay and Heidi-ho! :]

Well, Ive been terrible at blogging, but that is only because there have been so many fun things going on lately! I was going to post them all in one post, but then I figured I wouldnt really cover it all and summarize it, so be ready for multiple posts. First, one of my little sisters Heidi came out to visit Utah. She came out with her friend Lyndi to EFY at BYU. Luckily she was able to stay with us and spend some time a few days after and before her week in provo. Her stay consisted of lots of laughing, movies, puzzles, wedding reception, pizza balls, games, long drives, paddle boats and eating! It was fun to be able to spend some time together and just hang out.

living out of suit cases for a week and a half must have been so fun!

Paddle Boats

On their way to EFY



Checking in Heidi had to stand in the C line and Lyndi in the W line.



Quick CA Trip!

I am totally behind on blogging, but it has been busy being in school during this spring semester and all of my free time is spent hanging out with the hubby. A fun thing that I did without James was go to California with his parents. Yup, you heard right...Jim and Juli were nice enough to let me road trip it with them to San Fransico and James had to stay home to work. We went to CA becuase Jim was running in a 12k race called the Bay to Breakers. It was the 100 anniversary and he met up with his brother and they both ran the race. Jim and his brother had to be at the race very early (leave at 430am) in order to check in and find where they need to be becuase there were approx 50,000 people running the race. Juli and I had planned on watching Jim run the race, but there was no way we were going to get up at 4am to stand around till 8oclock for the race to begin. So, Juli and I decided to map out where to park and walk to the finish line by ourselves. This was very brave to go to SF ourselves and attempt this. After looking at the map and race info we felt pretty confident. We arrived in SF and found the spot we had planned to park. We were excited to find a spot and wondered why there weren't more cars. So, we started walking towards the finish line. Now on our map there was this green area that Juli and I figured was just a park next to the finish line. Welp, as we started walking we came to find out it was a huge forest of trees called the conservatory of flowers right in the middle of the city next to the beach. Long story short we treked through the trees (felt like red riding hood), followed a foreign man, talked to 4 strangers, walked through the middle of a golf course, and finally found the finish line. The first finisher for male ran it in 34:26 and woman in 39:12. Now remeber this was a 12k or approx 7.6 miles. INSANITY how fast they ran! We also had an adventure watching all the runners cross the finish line and watch for jim to come. I say it was an adventure because some of the people who ran this race did it nude. Only in SF can you get away with that. Luckily, Jim finished very quick in 1hour and 15min! woo hoo go jim! Then we had a BBQ with alot of Jim's family which was really fun. It was nice to have time to visit and eat with them , since when I met them on our wedding day I didnt have much time to visit!

Beside all of this fun I was able to spend a day with my family. My dad came and picked me up and I stayed one night at my house. Then Saturday I went to two of my lil sisters soccer games (she played awesome), got to see my lil bro get ready adn go to Mormon Prom and have yummy pasta salad made by my mom. Even though it was short it was nice to see my family for a bit. These were alot of fun things to do that were jammed pack into 2 days of driving and 2 days actually in CA.

Easter!

This Easter season I was truly able to focus on the Savior and true meaning of Easter by having the opportunity to teach the Easter lesson to my young women. I spent to the whole week listening to conference talks and reading the different apostles accounts of the last weeks with the Savior. I am so grateful for the atonement and Jesus Christ sacrafice for me and for you. I am so thankful for the resurrection, that he does live again and that we will be resurrected and live again. I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have that our life does not end after our time on this earth is complete.

On that note I was so happy that I was able to spend Easter with my Utah family =] In the morning James and I woke up to an Easter basket that the Easter bunny left for us :) Then we got dressed in our new Easter outfits and went to church at our ward. I was so happy that James had taken the day off of work so that we could spend the day together. After church my brother came up from Provo and we were able to do some service by bringing a meal to a family that was celebrating the life of their mom/sisiter/wife that had passed away. Then we all went to James parents Jim and Juli and had a delicious Easter dinner with sausage, ham, potato salad (Jim was so nice and made some for me without onions :), rolls, cabbage salad and more with chocolate pie for dessert. I love living so close to some of our family because we get to just show up for holiday meals. After we had dinner we played some games and did resurrection eggs (plastic eggs that has alittle something in each of them that represent a scripture verse and it goes through the story of Jesus's last week) It was a great Easter!!!

Our new Easter outfits!

Golf...dang Juli always winning!

Thank You Jim &  Juli

This is James face after I say.." Babe smile about our eggs!" haha

Cruisin!

James and I just booked a cruise to the Bahamas for Auguest. I cannot wait till we are in the sunshine, on the beach, relaxing without a care in the world, but alot has to happen before that. I am going to be going to school full time spring and part time summer. I have continuous school until I graduate next year and I am so lucky to have such a hard working husband that spoils me with fun things like a cruise so that I have something fun to look forward to on my breaks! We are looking for other couples to come with us, so if you're interested let us know we got a sweet deal through costco!