Some Easter Reading

As part of my calling in my church, I put together a list of articles on Easter, the Atonement and the Resurrection. The goal is to read at least one a week until Easter. I think YOU should do it! In fact, I'm kind of getting the vibes that you think this is pretty awesome and you think you should do it too! :) 


The articles are a wonderful way to have a better understanding of and focus on the Savior and what He really did for us! I've only read a couple so far but they are fabulous! Check em out! 

He Lives! All Glory to His Name.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ

"Jesus, The Very Thought of Thee."

The Resurrected Christ

The Atonement and the Value of One Soul

What Does the Atonement Mean to You?

He is Risen!

Resurrection

An Ode to Raul

Tonight we sold Raul. Raul was my very first car. He was truly a Raul through and through. It was sad to see him go. I bought him when I was a junior in High School for $300.00 from my cousin who thought he was junk. Thanks to my dad's handyman skills it's lasted me eight more years. There have been so many fun memories in that car.

-There was the time in the high school parking lot when he was officially dubbed a Rual. And for some reason when I think of him I think of green chilis.

- There were also the times in high school we "smuggled" people out to lunch in the trunk so they wouldn't get caught by the lunch aides.

-The many times screaming and giggling while we were driving away from boys' houses after asking and answering them to the dances.

-Trying to be "cool" around Jason and locking my keys in the car 40 minutes away from home. Embarrassing.

-The time I almost got squashed by a huge painting van and got away with only a thin graze of rubber from his bumper. Every time I replay that scene in my mind I get chills. I don't know how we got out of that one.

-The times I bragged, "Oh Raul, he's such a trusty car! He's never failed me." Only to have him break down the next week! Thanks a lot Raul. 

-All the club CAMEY's! 

There he is in the background, behind the lovely pot of daisies.
Well hello Mr. mailman! 

Again, just lookin good in the background during a
club CAMEY being his trusty little self. 

-The many hours talking with "the girls."

-The other time a crazy girl didn't see me stop and rear ended me and the only thing that got bent was my license plate.

-Filling him up with everything I owned and driving him 13 hours to Utah with my friend Tiffany. We acted like crazies the whole way there! My parents praying the whole time that he'd make it. And seeing my first icicle on the way!

-My first "real" snow and having to dig him out with my spatula cuz I had nothing else. "What's an ice scrapper?! Do they sell them here?" 

Seriously, that was so much snow!

-Plus, all the dates Jason and I went on while we were dating and engaged. 

It's silly that you can get so attached to a car. I didn't expect this list to be so long. We sold him to a really good guy who just got off his mission. I hope he enjoys the little guy! 

Adios Raul, mi amigo! 

Thanksgiving

I have so many things to be thankful for... but I was most thankful to get to see my family for a few days. I don't mean to brag (well...maybe just a little bit) but I pretty much have the most awesome family. Trust.
Thanksgiving was at our house this year which means ALL of my cousins and aunts and uncles came. There was a lot!

I truly have THE cutest grandparents ever. Try and tell me this picture doesn't make you smile?! 

Rachel and Diane. My beautiful seesters!

Con Bon, giving the stink eye. 

Dale and Babo (pronounced babe-o). 

Jas and I! True love at its best. 

The infamous teeter-totter. Countless children have been injured on this thing. I believe my great grandpa made it probably close to a hundred years ago and it somehow ended up in our backyard. This thing is the wonkavator of teeter-totters. It doesn't just go up and down it can pretty much go any way you like. And if you get someone in the middle to spin you around, you can get going pretty darn fast. And if you're in the devious mood you can drop to the ground mid super spin and get the other person to fly off! How do I know this...? I don't know. My cousin tried to see how many little kids it would take to balance him out. I think it took  like 5 or 6. Haha! 

This picture captures the beautiful weather that is Arizona Fall/Winter. Clear skies, green trees...perfect for a little joy ride! Oh how I miss it!

I love times together like this with the fam. And I love this car. 

Harry Potter Love

I realized I never posted about Halloween! Let me just preface by saying, I thought our costumes turned out pretty awesome! I was pretty humble about it too. We were Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter. By the end of HP 7.2 Neville Longbottom was pretty high up there on the awesome-HP-character list! So I only figured it was appropriate that Jason get to be Neville since he's number one on my just-down-right-awesome list! Here's what we looked like:

Our attempts at a self portrait before the wards Halloween party in our usual pose of me trying to be taller and Jason trying to pretend he's shorter. 

At the party we ran into some fellow Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws!

Jason's wand that we picked up at Ollivander's. (aka, he pulled it off a tree on our way to the church. Haha!)

Mug Shot

A few weeks ago Jason and I went to one of those paint-your-own-pottery places and made Christmas mugs! This was such a fun date. You get to sit and paint and talk for like 4 hours. It's simple and such a blast!

Jason's mug was amazing! A cute little snowman giving a gift to his cute little snow woman. What a thoughtful little snowman. 

I was proud of how his snowflakes and icicles turned out. 

I chose to go the ornament route. 

My two favorite ornaments. I replicated the ornament that Jason and I made for our first Christmas last year. We mod podged a wedding picture to the back of a canning jar lid. It's definitely my favorite ornament! And I was pretty proud of how it and my snowflake turned out. 

I love Christmas time. It's so fun to make your own Christmas traditions. 

So THIS is what Fall looks like!

Jason took me on a picnic yesterday because he is sweet like that. I could just end this post right there and be completely satisfied with it. However, I have some awesome pictures to show off so I will continue. :)
We started off by getting some Jimmy John's subs, the best, and heading up to Bridal Veil Falls/Vivian Park. The weather was perfect...when we left. When we got to Bridal veil, which happens to be in a canyon, it was way windy and cold. So, sadly our picnic ended up being in the car watching the wind. When we were done we decided to head up the road a little bit further just to see what was up there. We thought it was just going to be cabins and stuff but it ended up being such a beautiful drive! The Fall leaves are amazing! AMAZING, I tell you! I've never seen a Fall season like this due to Mesa's not really having any other season but hot and less hot so I was really excited to see a real Fall. As Jason can attest, I can get just a little too excited about Fall or ANY kind of seasonal changes for that matter. We found a park, parked (haha, funny words to put together) and ended up going on a totally unplanned, yet beautiful hike. I love how there are things in life that are totally unplanned or unexpected and they turn out to be some of the best things. Yesterday was one of those times. The plans we had made didn't turn out but turned into something so much better than we could have planned.

*WARNING: picture overload ahead.

I'm completely in love with these yellows.

We got to walk along this beautiful stream through most of the hike.

Again with the yellow! Ugh. Can't get enough. Especially against a bright blue sky like that.

This log was at just the right angle in the water that it looks like i took the picture just as it was falling in the stream.

Puffs!

Orange, black and blue. Coolest Halloween picture.

Look at the background in this picture. Are you not in love? 

This one was for my sister Rachel: Safari grass!!!! 

Bliss

Scandalous.

The fire leaf. Totally looks like a flame. 

This was the only one I edited. I thought the little white chairs were so cute. 

The end

Goblin Valley

In July, Jason and I got to go down to Southern Utah to Goblin Valley. This place was SO neat to see. It's filled with loads of crazy land formations and tons of little nooks and crannies to explore. 

Night time view of the goblins. 

Lately i've been seeing more and more of my dad in my facial expressions.
I've always been told I look like my mom but i'm seeing more of the papa. 

 We were soon to be on the top of that thing!

Ya, it doesn't look all that big from this picture.
Trust. It was a pretty fair hike.

 Half way to the top. It's crazy how the valley behind is so flat in comparison to all the lumpy goblins.

I just have to give a shout out here. See the girl in the pink? She's 4-5 months pregnant. I cannot BELIEVE the things she was doing on this hike! Things i'll bet she'll never be telling her doctor about.

From the top! Look at all the cute little boglins...i mean goblins! 

Why'd they choose to call them goblins anyway?

I know this shirt is a little...odd. But it's probably my all-time favorite. What's on it you ask?
Ya, I don't really know either. A happy dancing girl with large, splotchy eyes? 

We were awesome and got to wear cool headlights while doing 

a little spelunking. One of the coolest, scariest things i've done. 

Thanks Connie and Travis for the sweet head light! 

Slot canyons! This was my favorite part of the hike. We still 

had a long way to go so we didn't want to get our shoes wet 

(some of us were better at it than others...)We had to straddle 

the walls to get through the parts of the slots that were filled 

with water.  

I couldn't help feeling like this the whole time...

Can you not look at this picture without getting the song stuck in your head?
"Hup two, three, four. Keep it up two, three, four!" 

 It was so nice to go on this trip and be away from everything. No cell phones, computers or work. Just friends and fun. It's good to get away like that every once in a while and just be one with nature, as my good friend Sully would say :)