Christmas Time

Oh I just love christmas time!!! It is one of my favorite times of the year!

It sure has been a while since i have written on here. My life just isn't that quite exciting. But I'm excited for the new year...for it will bring lots and lots of changes!! I have two more weeks left working at Alpine Credit Union. Then I will be going to school full time at a school in Provo called AmeriTech College. I will be there for 10 months getting a Healthcare Office Specialist degree. After i'm finished there they will place me at a job somewhere. So while i'm at school i will be working part time. It will be weird to be back in school full time and only working part time. All i've been doing for the past 3 years is just working. But i'm very excited to have all these new changes in my life and to start something new!

My favorite Christmas memory would be a four or so years ago, my parents, me and my brother all went down to St. George to spend Christmas with my Grandma and Grandpa. My brother Josh was on a mission, so it was just the four of us. My Grandpa Marcus had just had surgery on his leg and so he was in a hospital. So we brought Christmas to them. They didn't know we were coming so it was all a surprise! Which made it so much better!! When we got to the hall that they were on we starting singing Christmas carols all the way to the room they were in! It was so much fun! We had Christmas Eve dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Josh called us while we were there so we got to talk to him. Christmas morning we went back to the hospital to share our presents we had boughten. It was so much fun to be serviceable to my Grammy and Grandpa! We didn't get home till the day after Christmas, so we opened our presents that Santa had brought us while we were away. It was such an awesome Christmas! Thanks mom and dad for doing that for us! We loved it!!

I hope you all have a great Christmas!! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!! AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Martin's Cove

This past weekend was simply awesome!!! I loved every minute of it...well maybe not the 6 hour bus rides(on a school bus)! But everything thing else was so much fun! I have been to Martin's Cove 3 times now. Though I have only walked the trails twice, once when I was in Young Womens, and then this weekend. I learned and felt so much more this weekend!

So we each got to pick a character of one of the pioneers in the companies. Then we researched them and presented them at a certain time. My girl was Zilpah Loader Jaques. She was born and raised in England. She grew up pretty well, living on an estate, while her Dad worked for the Sir and Lady that lived there. Was baptized in a river that had to have the ice broken to go into. Got married to John Jaques. They had a little girl before they came over to America. Her name was Flora. By the time they came over to America on the Horizon, Flora was 2 years old, and Zilpah was 8 months pregnant. Zilpah and John met Zilpah's family in Iowa City and joined the Martins Company with them. They all were so strong in the gospel and had so much faith that they would all reach Zion. Zilpah had her baby boy in Florence, Nebraska. His name was Alpha. Along the way Zilpah's Dad got very sick and ended up dying. So John was there to help with his in-laws, and still pulled his handcart too. It was very exhausting for him. There came a time when John's legs started to swell and it became harder and harder for him to pull the handcart. So Zilpah got out of the cart(she was still recovering from giving birth), leaving her 2 year-old and her newborn in the cart and got in the tongue of the cart and helped her husband push the cart so that they could keep going. Flora got sick later on and died at Fort Bridger, 6 days from the Salt Lake Valley. But they made it to Zion and buried Flora there in the Valley. Alpha was the oldest living member of that company.

Hearing all the stories about the different members of the company was such an amazing experience. I became so much more in tuned with where i was and what they went through at that point in time. We crossed the Sweetwater River; it wasn't as cold as i thought it was going to be for November. It was more refreshing to the 70 degree weather we were in. I was able to go through the river a few times. :) We had the BYU studios camera crew with us the whole time filming us, so the handcart that i helped pull through the river had a camera on it. We went through the first time, but they said the camera wasn't low enough to go all the way in the water how they wanted it, so we pushed the handcart back to the other side and tried it again. I got pretty wet, but it was such a great experience to be able to do that. As i went through I kept thinking how it would be to have chunks of ice flowing down the river and cut at your legs. Those pioneers were amazing to suffer through so much and still have faith that they would make it to Zion. I am truly blessed to be able to experience this last weekend with my ward! I have so much respect for the Pioneers and all they went through. If you want to learn more about their experiences, read The Fire and The Covenant. It is written by Gerald Lund and it's fictional characters in real events with the real pioneers. SO GOOD!! I loved it! I hope you all realize what our ancestors did to come to America, and what the rescuers went through to save those pioneers! I hope we never forget and never take it lightly. I'm so grateful for them and for them to listen to the Prophet's calling.

Halloween

Oh my goodness, it has surely been FOREVER since I last posted anything. My life really has been quite boring--work, school, work school, work, school.......same old thing! haha :)

My Halloween was quite relaxing actually! Didn't really do a whole lot for the weekend. Friday I went to Wingers, Comedy Sports, and hung out with my girls! Saturday I mostly hung out around the house, babysat my nephew, Caleb, for a couple hours, and watched Robin Hood with my Dad. It was a good weekend.

This is me with a my co-workers that dressed up on Friday.

This coming weekend, my ward has the opportunity to go to Martins Cove! I'm so so so excited!! We are going to be reenacting the crossing of the Sweetwater River. It's the anniversary when the Martins Company went through. November 4th is the actual date, but we will be going on the 6th! It will be a lot of fun! I will post next week on my experience! :)

B-Day and Labor Day

Well here I am....23! Ha! Don't really feel any different, but now I just get to say that I'm 23! I had a great birthday. I didn't really do anything on my birthday, but the holiday weekend after was great. My co-workers did throw me a little party making me some creamy broccoli soup and a birthday cake. Then Friday I hung out with some of my girlfriends and we went out to dinner and shopping. Saturday I headed up the canyon to meet my parents and my aunt and uncle and their family for some good camping! :) It was a bit windy up there, but it sure was pretty! My Dad, my cousin Andrew, and I hiked up a big hill to a rock formation that looked cool from the campsite..not so cool up close...

It's blurry cause my camera is zoomed in on it, but the little rock looked like a whole so we climbed up...

The view from up top!

So I guess you can't really tell how high we were with my camera zoomed in and all (it has a REALLY GOOD zoom!!). But it was a good workout for the three of us! Andrew just went up and down no problem..me and Dad on the other hand were pooped when we got back down! :) And of course we went out on the lake and did some fishing.

Dad had out like 5 poles at a time so it got kind of crazy at times, but it was fun!

My tiny little fishy that i caught...i thought i would give it a kiss to welcome it into the boat. Don't worry, I'm not squeezing it that hard...it just would stop moving long enough for me to kiss it. ;) It sure did taste good though...the meat not the kiss..GROSS! And yes it was very cold out there..I had a few layers on!

The 3 rascals! Andrew, Jacob, and Trenton...my cousins that came with us! They loved the boat and knowing what everything was and fishing. They were hilarious! I had lots of fun with them!

WE MADE IT! I was getting a photo shoot while the boys were cleaning the fish...little did i know that soon after this picture, when we got back to the trailers and started packing everything up..I found out my car wouldn't start. So we had to jump it quite a few times for it to start going again. Then down the road my car decided to stop working and turn off completely! So I had to think fast and coast to a stop at the side of the road without getting in the way of the traffic behind me. When the trucks pulling the trailers and boat, caught up with me they jumped me again. They had to jump my car about 4 or 5 times to get it home all the way back to Alpine. To make a long story short...after a new battery and an alternator my car is mostly back to normal! :) Thanks Dad and Kris for taking care of me!! What a weekend!