So close, yet, so far away

Only 16 more days til we're married for time and all eternity. I truly could not be happier.

P.S. One million thank you's to Jackie for the best pictures ever. I've lost track of the amount of people who have complimented them!! 

Family, Family, Family

This week has been quite an eventful one! 

On Tuesday, Angie and Jared got married in the Provo Temple. What a happy and beautiful day it was! They came out of the temple shortly after the sealing ceremony BEAMING with happiness. 

They both looked beautiful. All the groomsmen looked sharp with their brown suit shoes, brown suit pants, white shirt, and brown suspenders. All the bridesmaids wore shades between white and brown. Everyone looked so great and matched very well! 

Their luncheon was held at La Jolla Groves. YUMMM! Their were 8 speakers - 4 for Angie and 4 for Jared - who told funny and sweet stories and said some great things about each of them. The menu was all delicious. 3 options for an entree and 3 options for a desert. I got the Lemon chicken with potatoes and ice cream and berries. It was all SO delicious.

Coleman Studios in Provo is where the reception was held. What a cool and pretty place! There was a constant flow of guests between 6:30 and 9. Angie being from Orem and Jared from Provo, they both had tons of invitees. All the decorations, flowers, and pictures were stunning. The caterers were delicious - providing a delicious salad, garlic bread, and 3 types of soups, with desert of course.

At about 8:50, they cut their cake and Angie threw the bouquet. Then they were off! We had decorated their car with streamers, balloons, car paint, etc. They exited with family and friends creating a tunnel of sparklers, and are headed off to Aruba for their honeymoon.

They were so happy to finally be married to each other. 

I'm so excited for them both and am so glad they are sealed for time and all eternity. They make such a perfect couple and are beautiful together. They're such great examples to me. 

I love you, Angie and Jared! Congratulations!

The next day, Wednesday, Cameron departed to the MTC. 

We woke up that morning and went to the Stake Center to have him set apart as a full-time missionary. It was a great little meeting. He received advice from the Stake President, Mom, and Dad. They all had great things to say to him.

Afterwards, we went home for a few hours and Mom and I helped him finish up his packing (OK, maybe he hadn't even started...). It still hadn't hit me that he was leaving for 2 years. We loaded up his bags at about 12 o'clock and headed to get some food. Brick Oven had a "Missionary deal" where he ate for free and got 2 free cookies, one for him, and one for his companion. I love that!

After lunch, we headed to the temple to drop him off. It was soo hard saying bye to Cameron. He's been my best bud for such a long time. He's always the life of the party. Everyone is drawn to him. He's such a noticeable party of our family. When you come to our house, you always want to be around Cameron because he's so entertaining and funny. Cameron's always been so nice and friendly. In junior high he was voted "nicest" all three years. And he was Student body VP in high school. I think those things say a lot about Cam. He's popular. Everyone loves him. He's friends with all types of people. He was so inclusive to everyone. I'm so lucky I got to go to school with him. And be the sibling just above him. He's such a good brother and friend. I'm going to miss him being around. I'm proud of what he's doing though. He's going to be an incredible missionary. He's focused so strongly on become the best he can be for the people of Salta Argentina. He's going to change lives down there, including his own. I love him and will miss him like crazy these next 24 months.

                                                                                                                                                                 

I'm back!

Haven't blogged since Mexico! 

That was such a fun and exciting time of my life and I don't want to get rid of any of those posts. But I don't want to create a new blog for my friends and family to have to start following. So, I'm just changing things up, like the title and look of this and I'll be writing about my life now-a-days.

And man, have "now-a-days" been exciting..... 

Stories about the past few months, present, and many stories in the future, all to come!

Gela's Visit Pt. 2

Angie and I were planning on going down to Huatulco, Oaxaca on Thursday night. It was going to just be the two of us, staying in a cheap hotel, eating food from little "cocina economicas," and doin our thing at the beach. Well, yeah not the case...

 Mama, Papa, and the grand kids Diana (12), Jesus (11), and Christian (7) invited themselves along with us!! We ended up leaving at 4 am on Friday morning. This is the equation I have that will sum up the journey to Huatulco....

7 people + 5 passenger car + 8 hour car ride + 4 hours winding through mountains + vomiting 2x + 6 speed bumps hit going full speed = 1 hell of a car ride.

It was seriously the worst car ride ever. 

But SO funny.

Angie and I died laughing every time we hit a speed bump. After each one hit, the sassy 12 year old, Diana, would remind her grandpa how many he had hit at full speed "dos, abuelo." "que era numero 5, abuelo." It was sooo hysterical. 

Finally we got to the hotel. This is where we ended up staying thanks to Mama and Papa.

The Barcelo Hotel. An all-inclusive resort.

You know what "all-inclusive" means right?....

Endless alcohol.

Haha, soooo Angie and I had to compromise.

Endless pina colada's and ice cream. :):):):)

It was heaven. We would be laying in our chairs on the beach and servers would come by to take our drink order. "Yeah, I'll have another pina colada without alcohol, please."

So, after checking in on Friday afternoon, we headed straight for the beach. We just soaked in the sun and played in the ocean til it was time to go to dinner.

For dinner we had this...

YUMMM!  Fish fillet for me and tender beef for Ang.















                           

           Here's all of us at dinner
(Angie, Jesus, Christian, Diana, Papa, Mama, Me)

The next morning, Angie and I took off for some scuba diving! We did 2 dives, each 1 hour. Between the two dives we some some pretty incredible stuff. Beautiful fish, eels, starfish. A floor of stingray. Literally hundreds of stingray. We would spot their eyes in the sand and go touch their wings and they'd swiftly swim away. 

Also, we saw a whale. It was crazyy! It went up to the surface to get a breath of air. We were freaking out. My adrenaline was up and running after that!

In between the two dives, we got to go to this private beach and relax for a bit while our guide prepared everything for our next dive. We had water and fruit provided for us as we layed out and soaked in the sun. It was a pretty good time, to say the least.

After diving, we went back and played with the little kids in the pool. They loved taking pictures with my underwater camera (thanks mom and dad for the Christmas present!).

Love these kids!

Mama, Papa, and the kids took off back home on Sunday morning, but Angie and I wanted to stay the rest of that day. So, we had a few more adventures down in Huatulco.

More to come...

Buenas tardes!

Gela's Visit Pt. 1

This past week my eldest sister took some time off work and came down to visit me! It was PERFECT timing. I was missing my family a lot and definitely needed her company.

 

The first few days we spent with my Mexican family at home. We went to some of my favorite restaurants and she got to try some of the yummiest food down here!

 

This first video is of Ang eating the pepper that I have named "El Diablo." Whenever my family gives me any other pepper we gauge how hot it is by saying it's la abuela del diablo (the grandma of the devil) or el hijo del diablo (the son of the devil). That way I roughly know how hot it is in comparison to this bad boy. It's SOOO hot.

         This one is of her drinking Pulque. It's the drink that tastes like alcohol. But is natural and extremely healthy. I'd choose poor health over drinking this drink anyday. It's terrible!!

 

 

 

 While in Tehuacan, Ana forced us into getting little braid extensions in our hair. I wish we have captured the end results of them. They are SUPER little girl looking. We have purple and pink moon beads and butterflies tied into them. Haha. We were loving it. Ana thought they were so cute.

 

Doesn't Angie look so pretty in this picture?!

 

 

Angie got to meet my brand new baby nephew. His name is Juan Carlos. After his dad (my brother).

 

FYI: The father of this baby is only 17. And the mother is 21. Crazy right?

 

 

My family lovesss Angie. Right from the get-go she fit in with the fam. The younger kids loved playing with her.

 

 

After 2 days spent at home, we set sail to Huatulco, Oaxaca for some beach time! Sooo much fun.

 

More to come on that....

 

Buenas noches.

 

 

My Students

This is the type of stuff I would deal with everyday in class....

Hahah! I laugh so hard every time a watch that. The big "THUNK" each time he hits my camera.

This video was from one of our Fridays. In class on Fridays, we would do our daily starter which consisted of them answering a question on the board and then fixing 2 sentences that had spelling or grammatical errors. Then, we would take our spelling and vocabulary test. And then the rest of class we'd make a treat and learn a dance! The kids always look so forward to Fridays. 

This video gives a little glimpse into what I dealt with everyday. Those kids were SUCH a pain in the behind. Especially Miguel. The one hitting my camera. He was so disobedient. Would never keep his hands to himself. He hit the other kids. Called the other kids mean names. Broke 3827940 pencils. Would run out of the classroom. Wouldn't do his work. Scribbled all over the table. And sooo much more. 

But I was the biggest sucker for him. I loved that kid to pieces. I learned to love all of my students (maybe some a little more than others). At times I had to slam my hand on the table. Shout out a students name. Have them look me straight in the eye and tell them the quit doing what they were doing. And then I would send them to the "isolation chair" in the corner. But, it was impossible for me to stay mad at those kids. 

I just wanted the best for them. I wanted them to learn as much as they possibly could. I want them to have successful futures. 

Before I left to Acapulco this weekend, they asked me to bring them back each a seashell. So, while there I picked out cute little pink tinted seashells for the girls and blue tinted seashells for the boys. I was so excited to give it to them. Unfortunately, with tears running down my face, I had to give the bag of seashells to one of the other teachers to give to them. I'm heartbroken that I don't get to give each of them their special seashell. I was so excited to be all cheesy and silly. Maybe pretend like I forgot somebody's. Or pretend like their was still a crab in one of them. I loved joking around with and teasing my students.

They were so fun. So annoying. So lovable.

Pt 5/5

On Monday, to finish our trip, we went to a popular water park called El Rollo. Sooo much fun. This park was endless. Seriously. 7 peaks will now always just be a disappointment to me. We spent the whole day here.

Kelsey and I using my sweet waterproof camera.





Me, Becca, Baylee, Kelsey, and Ashley soaking up the sun!

 I stole these two pictures of the internet just to show more of the sweet slides and giant pool they had there.

Right in the middle of our day there, we walked by the big wave pool and saw a bunch of ladies doing water aerobics! Of course we decided to join in!

The funnest ride at El Rollo was this one.... This place has NO safety precautions. As many people could go on this as they wanted. Head concussions just waiting to happen. Seriously, it was very dangerous. Never would it be allowed in the States. But, danger = fun, right?? Sooo much fun. We did this for probably 50% of our time there.. 

Pt 4/5

After church the girls and I took our 2 our journey to Cuernavaca! 

Randomly but fortunately Baylee has a great uncle who moved there after retirement and is running a bed & breakfast right smack-dab in the middle of the city. Can you say "hooked up"?!?!? 

This is where we stayed...

As always, pictures could never do justice for this place, but it was much nicer than any hotel I've ever stayed in. Definitely not what we were all expecting being here in Mexico. Uncle Bill is a very "artsy" character, and so there were beautiful plants, flowers, trees eevverryyywhereee! Each guest room there had it's own theme to it. I stayed in the library room. Bookshelves filled with thousands of books. It was so beautifully decorated. I seriously want to hire this guy as an interior decorator. 

Anyway, after getting settled in at the bed & breakfast, we went up to the zocalo for the Sunday festivities.  There were many different stands selling things from jewelry to balloons to food. There were break dancers out and men on stilts. But my personal favorite was the clown.

Not because he was funny or entertaining (cause quite frankly, we weren't even watching him). But because of this....

My friends and I were just walking around the zocalo when suddenly we realize that this big group of people were staring at us. I mean, we get a lot of stares on the daily but, this was hundreds of people in a large group all staring. It only took a second until we realized that in the middle of this group of people there was a clown hollering "GUERAS!!!" We look over and he had a big cheezy grin on and was waving his arms trying to get our attention. Haha, of course all the white girls were just so oblivious to their surroundings and didn't realize they were being yelled at through a microphone! Anyway, the clown said a few things after getting our attention and then motioned for one of us to come over. The girls volunteered me to be the one to make a fool of myself. I went in the middle of this block of people and was in the spotlight for 2 minutes or so. He asked me a few simple questions in Spanish but mostly entertained the crowd with me just kind of going along with it. I got a a balloon wifi hat and a balloon dog out of it!... after being suckered into giving him a kiss on his cheek.. twice. You gotta do what you gotta do to fit in here, right?? Haha!

Afterwards, we hung around in the same spot for about an hour because we literally had a line of people wanting to get pictures with us. We were living the celebrity life. We got offers to go to dinner with people, to go get drinks, to go to parties with them. Everyone wanted to be around us. Haha, seriously. It was so funny. 

That evening after several hours at the zocalo, we just took it easy and chilled at the luxury hotel. It was a fun, culture-packed day!

Pt 3/5

Out trip was seriously a dream come true thus far. But, Sunday morning was my favorite part of it all...

Being down here in Mexico, it's hard to live exactly how I want to because I depend on so many other people. I always do exactly what my host family has planned for me. So, sometimes I am unable to make it to church on Sundays because of what they have going on with me and the family. Or sometimes the girls and I have to travel home on Sunday mornings from our weekend vacations. Regardless, I hadn't been to church for 3 weeks. And it was taking a toll on me. 

I can honestly say I have never wanted to go to church so bad in my life. 

I do my best to read my scriptures and say my prayers everyday. And that brings much joy to my life. But there is something special about being with a ward family. Dressing in my Sunday best.  Hearing others bear their testimonies (even when you can't totally understand everything). Which in turn helps my testimony grow. Partaking of the sacrament. And feeling the spirit. 

After searching for a while and me making a few phone calls, we found the chapel in Taxco. The excitement I felt walking up to the building was overwhelming. Really. I've never felt that way about attending church before. A member of the bishopric greeted us with a handshake and a smile. We walked up a few flights of stairs and then saw the Elders. What a happy sight. They were shocked to see 5 gringas walk in. One of the Elders was from Kaysville and attended Davis High. We chatted with them for a while and waited for the meeting to get started. The attendance of about 50 people was heartwarming. I wasn't expecting that many for the size of the city! They had a CD player playing hymns and so we volunteered Ashley to be the pianist for the meeting. They were thrilled! 

It was fast and testimony meeting and I'm so grateful that it was. It was just what I needed. Hearing the testimonies of those members was incredible. Really, I don't know why that very meeting was so special, but it was definitely one of my favorite testimony meetings I've ever attended. 

I certainly take for granted the life I have back home. Raised by the best examples I could possibly have. With parents who love the Lord. Sealed in the temple. A father and brothers who worthily hold the priesthood and chose and will choose to serve missions. Sisters who continue to live their lives worthy of all of the blessings our Heavenly Father has to offer. Also, for extended family, friends, and neighbors who make it that much easier for me to live the gospel.

It seems like it would be difficult to get up and travel a fair distance to church in places like Mexico and other parts of the world. By yourself. With children but without your spouse. Or even with all your family. It's got to be hard! But the spirit I felt from those people is unforgettable. What faith, courage, and strength they have. They will never know the example they were to me and the impact they had on my testimony. 

I love the gospel. I feel so blessed to have the knowledge that I do. 

Sunday was such a good day. :)

Pt 2/5

Saturday, February 2nd.

One of the funnest days ever.

We started our day early at 7am. The Cacahuamilpa Caverns was our first stop. It's this GIANT cave outside of Taxco. ohmygoodness. Timpanogos Cave has got nothing on this place. 

I felt so incredibly minuscule in this cave. Unfortunately pictures could never show the size of it.  

 There were so many cool stalactites and stalagmites. Although we couldn't understand the tour guide, we did watch for cool things he would point out. There are so many amazing creations on this Earth.

                                   

These boys were the first of about 30 different people or groups of people over the weekend to come up and ask for a picture with us....

So, after the caves, we headed back to Taxco, grabbed some lunch, and got picked up by George. 

George is from a small town near Taxco called Atzala. He worked as an unofficial tour guide for a little waterfall attraction in his town. He escorted us via combi (the most common and inexpensive way to get around Mexico) to Atzala. 

This is us in the combi. Most of the other gringas are on the back row. George is the one on the left with a purple shirt sitting next to Becca. I got thrown on the front middle seat snuggled between the combi driver and a lady who busted out her boobs a few different times to feed her 1 1/2 her old son.. It was quite the ride there... 

However, little did we know, we'd be going to paradise...

We took a 10 minute hike to get there and when we walked up to the falls, we were breathless. There were 4 different falls that each led to a pool of crystal water. I never wanted to leave. There were places to climb up, jump off, swim under, and slide down. It was sooo fun.

After a few hours spent at the Pozas Azules, we headed back to Taxco for some dinner and another night on the town. We walked around the silver markets again and hung out at the zocalo (the main city square or park in every Mexican city) for a while. Here's us and another group of our admirers.

And to finish the night off, we went on the roof of a restaurant for one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. We sat up there and just talked for a while. It was a peaceful end to an amazingly adventurous day.

La vida es buena.

More to come.... Buenas tardes.