Yellowstone

This is from a couple months ago, but oh well.

We decided to go to Yellowstone on free entrance to national parks day. I surprised Doug and booked a "cabin" for that night. We had so much fun!

I can't figure out how to move pictures on here now...so they're in a weird order.

Only in Yellowstone!

A bear! WE SAW A BEAR!

The inside of the lodge. Don't you want to curl up in one of those chairs and read?

Cool sunburst picture at the tiny "lake" on the Continental Divide. (I think its a pond, but who makes the rules anyway..)

The gorgeous view from the amazing dining room in the lodge! Sunset at Yellowstone Lake.

Our cabin.

It was so fun to get away for a night and just be together. We had a blast!

Free Canvas Print!

I saw this on another blog and I think I'm going to take advantage of it! A company called Canvas People is giving $55 off any size canvas, you just pay shipping (14.95, I think). That makes an 8x10 canvas free, but the shipping. The rest of their canvas prices are INCREDIBLY REASONABLE with that discount too! Go check out! You upload your picture and choose a size canvas. AWESOME.

http://www.canvaspeople.com/special-offer?utm_source=HO_CP&utm_medium=Affil&utm_campaign=promo

Tagged :)

My friend Allie tagged me for these fun questions. Here it goes. :)

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?
When I was younger, my mom and I would pull blankets out and sleep by the Christmas tree for a night sometime before Christmas. Oh, and my dad would make me wait in my parents' room til he got the video camera set up...every Christmas. Talk about torture! Haha

What is your favorite way to relieve anger/frustration?
Talk about it! Poor Doug gets to hear blow-by-blows of what people do that drives me crazy. Haha

What was the last good movie you watched? Why?
Salt was AMAZING! I thought it was going to be just another good secret agent movie but it had SO many twists! We LOVED it!

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
Depends on the day. What time is it? Can I sleep longer? Is Doug in the bathroom?

Name 5 things that make you happy.
Doug! My family and Doug's family. My friends. Traveling. Comfy clothes.

Describe your perfect day.
Sleeping in together and hanging out all day with nothing to worry about.

What is the worst job you've ever had?
I worked with developmentally disabled adults and some of them were REALLY hard! There was one who got mad all the time over tiny stuff, and there was one who you had to wipe every time she went to the bathroom. Iiiiick. Good thing I was just a fill in at that job!

If you could relive the best day of your life, what day would it be? I want details!
I've had so many best days with Doug! Our wedding day would obviously be amazing to relive, and just soak it in more. A weekend we recently spent in Yellowstone where I suprised him with a cabin on the lake...we saw the sites and came back to the lodge and ate a yummy dinner in the GORGEOUS dining room that faced the lake. We played games and relaxed and saw everything else the next day. A camping trip we went on this summer was amazing too... there's a lot of days that would be awesome to relive!

Watering Plants

Just a quick laugh for all of you.

My boss came up and handed me a pitcher and said, "Will you water the plants?" I asked her where they all were and she pointed into the big room next to us and said vaguely, "There's one there, there, and there, and in the corner. And there's two in my office." She indicated that it didn't need to be done immediately.

Well, it was after she left and I decided to go water the plants. There seemed to be more than she mentioned, but fit in with them being close together (there, there, and there). She failed to mention there were fake plants. And I totally watered a fake plant.

Hahahahaha :)

The Blue Angels

If you haven't seen the Blue Angels before, you HAVE to go see them if they're ever anywhere near you!

Two days before the show, I was at my friend Kourtney's house and the Blue Angels started practicing and flying right over her house. Once we figured out what that loud noise was, we were like little kids running outside to see them. My parents came down the weekend of the show and my mom had a great idea of where we could go watch for free. We ended up right next to the runway, with free parking, and no ticket price. :) It was the most perfect spot- they would fly right over us all the time.

Feast your eyes on the wonder that mere mortals know only as the Blue Angels. :)

See how low they got? We had such a perfect spot.



Holy cow....

I spy with my little eyes: two upside down planes. Can you spy them too? How on EARTH do they do that?!?! (A common question in my mind throughout the show)

I don't get how they can fly that close together! If any of them even hiccuped they'd all die.

We had so much fun! There's nothing like seeing something so amazing that you can't stop saying, "Oh wow!" "Holy cow!" "How do they do that?" "That's impossible, but they do it anyway!" every other second. :)

Prayers For Preslee

I stumbled across the story about this family. I don't know them, but it broke my heart. A young couple in Rexburg has a daughter named Preslee. A few days ago, she fell in a canal and a farmer found her 2 miles down. She's at Primary Children's now. Go check out their blogs and say a prayer for her. They look like SUCH a sweet family.

http://helpsullengers.blogspot.com/

http://patrickandashley.blogspot.com/

Oops

The most recent 3 blogs (all published tonight) published in a weird order. I meant for the older stuff to be at the bottom. Read all the way down to the Sleepover one! :)

Happy Birthday to Me :)

Like our anniversary post, this is almost 3 months late. Oops.

I started my day off by going to work at 8 in the morning. My sweet bosses got me a card and came out and made everyone sing to me. :) When I came home, I couldn't wait to open presents. I got The Proposal and an iPod (from Doug and my parents)! Doug knows me better than I do... I had thought that when I got an iPod I would want a pink one, but he explained as I opened a RED one that the pink ones were nasty and he got me this awesome red one instead. It's so nice! He had engraved on the back: Now we can rock out together. Xoxoxo He's so sweet! We went to my favorite restaurant for dinner.

My angel visiting teacher brought me a present so sweet it almost made me cry! I had raved about some cookies she brought me about a month before. For my birthday, she brought me a plate of hot cookies, a bag of dough that she had frozen so I could have them whenever, a scoop, the recipe, and the chocolate that goes in. Thanks so much Terry!

My mother in law bought me the vinyl saying for the frame that I bought ages ago with it in mind. It's a 24x36 frame that now reads: "Real love stories never has endings." We're going to hang on the wall next to our stairs when we get the motivation to get the ladder in here, haha. She also gave me money that I'm going to use to buy paint for the kitchen! Sweeet! Thanks!

My sister in laws went together and got me a gift card to the most wonderful decorating store! I quickly used it to buy awesome decorations, of course! :)

My parents came down the next weekend and we went to my favorite restaurant again with them. I got free fried ice cream. :) It was a wonderful birthday!

Thanks everyone! Love you all!

Our Anniversary (Posted almost 3 months late...)

So....this is almost three months late. But I figured it would be good to get it on here anyways.

It's been a year already! It's gone by so fast and I love him so much! For our anniversary, we started off by sleeping in! It's a rare day that we can sleep in together, so it was wonderful. We went to go to Avatar 3D but it was sold out. (I should have listened to Doug! It had been out so long that I really didn't think it would still sell out...oopps!!) We changed our plans and bought tickets for the later showing and went to dinner early. My mom was so sweet and had given us money to go to an expensive restaurant. Thanks mom! After dinner, we went and picked up a new wedding cake layer that I surprised Doug with from the same lady that made our cake. We went to the movie and LOVED it! It was both of our first 3D movie and it was an awesome movie too! It was so nice to spend the whole day together.

Pretty cute in 3D glassees, huh? :)

Sleepover!

A while back we had our nieces over to our house for a sleepover! We had such a good time! We had pizza for dinner (yum!) and made the world's best brownies together for dessert. I LOVED having the girls helping with the brownies, it was heaven! Needless to say, they were very enthusiastic helpers!

I love these girls so much!!

Calling All Prayers!

This is my cousin's daughter, Michelle.

She is an angel. A miracle. The moment she was born she had to start fighting for her life. After forever in the hospital, she was finally been able to come home. She has been growing and learning SO much since then! Unfortunately, she is back in the hospital very, very sick. I know you don't know her, but she desperately needs your prayers right now. So please, please, PLEASE pray for sweet Michelle with all your heart.

The Refiner's Fire

Doug and I were in SLC and had the amazing opportunity to watch gold be refined up close. I am banging my head against the wall that I didn't think to take the camera in... But I was completely overwhelmed by why this certain symbolism is used in the scriptures.

First, the gold goes into a very thick metal cup and gets put into a metal tub where the fire is. This fire was so powerful by itself that it was astounding to look at...and the people said the fire they have didn't get hot enough by itself, so they took what looked like a welding torch to it to get the fire even hotter every once in a while. I asked them how hot it had to be to refine the gold, and the answer was somewhere around 1800 degrees. Every so often he would drop in some powder that makes all the impurities cling to it and come together . After quite awhile of melting the gold, the refiner got the cup out and cooled it in buckets of water. He dropped the gold out onto the floor, and all the impurities were all together in a black shape on the bottom. He hit it and they all dropped right off.

Pretty simple right? I can't even explain to you what a powerful representation to me of why the refiner's fire is used as a symbol. You're going through a trial and it's really bad, and then when you think it can't get any worse, the fire gets hotter. It circulates between bad and worse, all the while you are (hopefully) learning what you need to and your imperfections are sinking down. When you bring the Savior into it, the imperfections or bad things can fall right off, just like in the gold.

It's odd to me how much this experience taught me..I definitely don't think it was a coincidence that we had this opportunity. I mean, I'm the type of person that gets emotional at gorgeous art and beautiful songs, not watching raging fires.. Not that I got teary eyed emotional at the experience, but I don't think I've ever felt so powerfully taught about a symbol and that I knew and understood why Heavenly Father chose that symbol to use for us. I remember that feeling of absolute understanding and I know that I was supposed to learn what I did.