UPDATED!!! [finally]

I just spent forever posting a ton of new blogs and making it look prettier. Start at the bottom, I'm too lazy to do it backwards so it appears in the right order. :) ENJOY!

Doug's Birthday!

Tuesday was Doug's birthday. I surprised him with this totally homemade cake. Homemade frosting is so delicious but I didn't realize how difficult it is to make without my mom's commercial mixer!!


We went out to dinner and then to the new Fast and Furious movie. We both absolutely love the series and the new movie is no let down! The stunts are INCREDIBLE!

He got spoiled for his birthday. A new Garmin nuvi 255 surprised him alot! He has been really really wanting a GPS.

The other, littler gifts were a sweet pen, a car freshener, and a 3 pack of his favorite gum. The GPS definitely stole the show though. :)

Nauvoo road trip: Part 3

After we went to Libery Jail we went to dinner and to a hotel we found a coupon for, for really cheap. As cheap as the coupon was for, I knew it was not going to be a nice hotel. However, I was not expecting what we got. We got there and had to buzz in to have the hotel person unlock the door for us to come in. It reeked of smoke inside. I was a little worried and asked her after we checked in if stuff would be safe in our car over night. She said, "Oh yeah. Just lock your doors." We went to our room, and besides it smelling so strong of old urine it almost killed me, this is what we found:

This is one of the holes in the boxsprings.

Here is the bathroom tile...

And the hole in the bathroom door added a classy touch.

We stayed in there for a few minutes when I decided I wanted to pop some popcorn we bought because my game was on. We called the lobby and of course there was no microwave in the entire hotel. We drove to a gas station to use their's and they were supposed to be open, but they were apparently closed. And not just closed, but a huge chain was wrapped around the door handles. This confirmed my fear that we were in a bad part of town. We kept driving and found an open one...with bars in the doors. Yikes! We obviously didn't know we had picked a bad part of town beforehand. That night, we slept on our emergency blanket from the car and used Doug's dirty t-shirts over the pillowcases. I'm surprised we haven't contracted any strange diseases yet!

The next we woke up to monsoonal rain and wind. On our way out of town we stopped for gas. After a few minutes of pumping gas, Doug opened my door and said, "Uh...I think we have a serious problem." My heart dropped. "See those black things over there?" He pointed across the parking lot. "Those black pieces are our gas cap." I told him to go grab it. He brought it back, and BY MIRACLE, when it blew off the car and got ran over, the only part that got shattered off was the handle part. We still had a working gas cap! Minus the handle, but hey, it still worked. What a blessing!


We stopped that night in a totally fine hotel luckily. The next day we drove the rest of the way home. Our only misfortune the rest of the trip:

Holy crap! I was bending over to grab something and heard a huge thud. I looked up and to my surprise saw this huge...crack thing...in our windshield! I gasped and the rearview mirror was blocking Doug's view of it so he bent around and freaked out too. Stupid semis kicking rocks at us! We are so lucky it didn't break our whole windshield though!

The end :)

Nauvoo road trip: Part 2

Read the post below first!

The next part of our trip was Nauvoo! Driving in, it was nothing like I had pictured. We had an awesome historic hotel for cheap, and when we got there, they were running a half off special those nights! I love travelling off season! All the shops and buildings were closed when we got there so we just looked around and made plans for the next day before going the famous buffet that just so happened to be in our hotel We ate SO much! Their dining rooms could hold hundreds of people all at once and were so pretty! Here is the one we were in:

Our table was right under this huge fake apple tree! So pretty!

The next day we went shopping and then into the historic buildings of Nauvoo. I am trying to resist posting tons of pictures so maybe I just won't post any of the buildings. We went to the bakery where you get a free gingerbread man cookie. Yum! Then we went to the family living center where they have demonstrations of how things like making bread, candles, rope, rugs, barrels, and pottery were made back then. Since us and one other family were all that were there, we got to keep stuff they made! So cool! Then we went to the blacksmith shop where we watched the missionary make a mini horseshoe. We got one of those too!

That night we went to the Nauvoo temple. It was so special to be there! The temple president greeted us as we walked in and then after when we left. He is really friendly! It was also really cool to see a rose that President Hinckley painted on one of the paintings.

The next day we went to Carthage Jail on our way out of town. I learned so much there!

After Carthage, we drove to Independence, MO to see Liberty Jail. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip because of how much it strengthened my testimony. When you see the conditions they were kept in for 5 months, you can understand why Joseph asked, "O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?"

Seeing all these sites was amazing and I am so glad we went! The trip strengthened my testimony so much. There is no way Joseph Smith could have suffered all the things he did if the church was not true. The saints were so strong to leave their beautiful city. It is amazing to see where they walked as they left town, knowing they were living their homes that they would never see again. Being in Nauvoo made things personal for me. I am so excited to re-read the Doctrine and Covenants now that I have seen many of the places they lived.

For the last part of our trip, read the post above! It's funny and worth reading, I promise.

Nauvoo road trip: Part 1

Doug and I decided about 2 or 3 weeks to go to Nauvoo for spring break. Pretty spontaneous for a week long trip! My parents had already invited us to their house in Wyoming the first weekend of it because their stake was getting the Draper Utah temple dedication. So we started the fun road trip with a weekend in the beautiful Pinedale, Wyoming.

A dollar to the first person who sees what is "wrong" with this picture. J/k. See the deer in those people's backyard (right behind the porch)? Driving around town you see deer and moose running around everywhere! Crazy huh?

Fremont Lake. There were breathtaking views all over in the mountains.

Our next leg of the trip was supposed to be to Mt. Rushmore. The morning we were supposed to leave super early, my parents checked the weather for us and found out there was going to be a blizzard right over the roads we were supposed to travel. I am used to living in Idaho where when a blizzard is predicted, it never happens, so I didn't really buy into it. Doug and I were exhausted though and decided to sleep some more and check the weather again. What a blessing! A Wyoming DOT webcam that had earlier shown wet roads was now a complete white out! My dad being the awesome navigator he is, printed us off maps of how we could skip that leg of the trip and go directly to Omaha, our next stop for the Winter Quarters Temple.

This is my favorite temple now! Look how pretty the doors are. The inside is incredible.

In Omaha we also went to Carrabba's, a delicious Italian restaurant. If you ever see one, go!! We went to Cabela's (AMAZING!) and a huge mall where we saw this sweet food drive display:

Wall-E! Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?!

Continue on our trip with part 2 (the post above)!

I'm it!

Sorry it took me so long to see the tag Steph!

Here goes.

8 Favorite TV Shows:
MYTHBUSTERS!

American Idol

Bullrun (my brother in law got me addicted..)
Cold Case

I don't really watch much TV...

8 Things I Look Forward To:

Summer
Painting the house

Gym membership
Camping

Playing with nieces and nephews
Date night

Scrapbooking
Clean house :)

8 Things on My Wish List
Some new shirts for summer
A good grade in Anat and Phys
A santoku knife
To find out if I'm accepted into the Paramedic program
A fun summer job
That cookbook I really wanted and restrained myself from buying... :)
A hair cut (does anyone have any ideas? I can't figure out how I want it!)
My cousins to live closer (HINT HINT! haha)

8 Things I Did Yesterday:

Wrote a paper

Went to yoga
Volunteered at new freshman registration

Looked at the Ikea website

Wrote down recipes

Looked at the awesome sale Albertson's is having

Ate lunch with Doug
Bought donuts at almost 11 pm because they sounded good to us :)

8 Favorite Restaurants:

Maddox
Melina's
Texas Roadhouse
Olive Garden
Wendy's
Taco Bell
Perkin's
Red Robin