Mexico & California for the Mr. & Mrs. Part 1

Me and Justin went on a trip to celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary.We flew in an airplane out of Provo.

This gaudy staircase was one of my favorite features of the cruise ship we stayed on.

Here is our view of Catalina Island from the ship.

We rented a bicicle built for two. That was quite an experience. Good team-building exercise. 

I loved the flora on the island.

All ready to snorkel.

Justin wasn't too keen on the whole snorkel in cold water on a somewhat windy day idea, but I had a decent time checking out some orange fish and some black and white striped fish, although I did get tangled in some kelp and about had a heart attack trying to get out of it since I was all by myself and Justin was on shore. All in all, Catalina was fun. 

Elsa's Castle

IN wintertime, I was able to take the kids to a local ice castle, about 45 minutes away. It was soooo cool. Literally. ha! No, really, the kids loved it, especially since we had just seen Frozen, and had been listening to all the songs from the movie 24/7.

Disney's very own Elsa and Ana made appearances! Too bad I didn't get a picture. The line was over an hour long just to get pics with them anyway. Who has the time and patience for that. 

Let's all hope the ice castle comes back next year.

ALso, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAJYk1jOhzk&list=RDDAJYk1jOhzk#t=0

Magnifying Mormon

A few weeks after being in our new ward in Lehi I was called as the 1st Counselor in the Young Women program in our ward. It has been busy but awesome! I have loved it! I have had the chance to go do baptisms for the dead at the Mt. Timpanogos Temple, Oquirrh Mtn Temple, Salt Lake Temple, Jordan River Temple, and Draper Temple! What wonderful experiences with amazing fellow leaders and girls! I am seriously so blessed!
I also had the opportunity to go to girls camp last year, it was super fun. Check out this braid one of the girls did on my hair.

Me and my fellow leaders, amazing women, I am so blessed to know them!

Geneology, I am doing it

Yes, I actually am! It is soooooooo fun! I've always been interested in genealogy/family history but the past few months I have taken it to a whole new level. Seriously! It all started with some great young women activities where we all learned to login to familysearch.org and submit names to take to the temple. Then I went home and showed Justin how to do it. Now Michael is even doing it! It is so easy and fun. Justin & I have been to the temple several times doing tons of family names and it is so special each time. We have also been verifying that our family tree's are accurate. Which some are not. So, I have contacted my dad, my grandpa, my grandma, and several of Justin's grandparents about getting pictures and stories of ancestors.

My grandparents, David & Carolyn & their eight kids

It really took off from there. There was one time when I couldn't find pictures of one set of my grandma's grandparents, I asked several people who I thought would know and they had no idea. My grandpa said he thought he might have some pictures of them so I set a time to meet with him at his house to find the pictures. When I got there I told him the names of the people I was looking for and he took me into this back bedroom and lo and behold there were two gigantic 20 by 30 framed paintings of them!

After taking pictures of them my grandpa then told me everything he remembered about them and started crying, and I started crying, and it was a really special experience. For Christmas I made my brother, sister, & parents family tree's. It was a lot of work.

Lots of compiling, printing, cutting, and glittering

I also put labels on each picture

For my sister's family

For my brother's family

For my parent's ( I went back much further)

Here are Justin's grandparent, Carol & Dee over 50 years ago

Here are Carol & Dee now :)

A few weeks ago I attended Roots Tech in Salt Lake City. It is the biggest family history conference in the world. It was amazing! I'll have to post more on that later.

Miss Francy Makes Friends

It's crazy how different my kids are. Francesca, who seems to have taken on the nickname of "Francy", loves making friends. It's in her nature. First of all, she has built-in friends who happen to be her brothers. When they are at school she loves chasing Conrad around. When Conrad is napping she begs and begs me to play with a friend. She loves playing house, dress-up, my little pony, barbies, & dolls.

I think she is used to being surrounded by people, so that's where she is most comfortable.

Her BFF is definitly her grandma, my mom. He and my mom are so similar it's uncanny. From their petite size, to their feminine nature to their love of rolls and of playing in water, they are two peas in a pod. 

She is a lot like a sparker. ;)

I wanted to add that she also adores Justin's mom as well. 

I love this girlie girl of mine.

She makes me laugh and cry and smile all at the same time.

Best Book Ever!

I was at a yard sale a few weeks ago where a lady had over 800 books (she told me) and let me get as many books as I wanted for $1 total. I took home waaaayy too many books. But I got some gems, one of them being "Heidi" By Johanna Spyri. I picked it up and couldn't put it down. I adored it. It was divine. I cried. I laughed. It's my new favourite book.  I think I related to it in so many ways. It made me appreciate living here in Utah so close to the mountains. If you are looking for a book to read I highly recommend "Heidi".

Engage.

We are sooooooooooo super excited!!!!!

Captain Furr & I

Some awesome friends of us invited us to go here (Thanks Julie & Grant!), the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center. We didn't really know what to expect, but we loved it. We participated in a Space simulation on a ship similar to ships in Star Trek. It seemed as though everything was Star Trek referenced, It was so totally rad! Justin was elected Captain and I got to be the First Officer. 

 Here we are right before the simulation.

 Waiting in line before the breifing.

 We tried making serious Starship important people faces.

I even found a bomb and someone on my crew detonated it in time to save our crew. Our mission was successful.  We also met a few super cool new friends we now hang out with, who love Star Trek as we love Star Trek. We are still kind of mourning the loss of the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas, so this made up for it a little. Someday we plan on attending a real Star Trek Convention and hope to meet some of the characters in the Star Trek world. I know this must sound super geeky but yes I am really that into it.

Kiddie Rides! Yay!