Another Tribute

President Gordon B. Hinckley

"We thank thee, O God, for a Prophet to guide us in these Latter-days."

Our beloved Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley has passed away this evening (Sunday, January 27, 2008) at about 7:00pm MST.At age 97 and president of our church for 12 plus years, he's certainly made his mark in the world. I know he is a prophet of God and the only sorrow I feel is sadness that his family is without him for a little while and that we won't see him at the upcoming conferences of the church.What an incredible man. He's truly a man of God and has shown us by example how a true Christian should live!

I'm so glad he can be with his sweetheart again! We'll miss you, President Hinckley!

Houston

I was looking on some of my friends' Facebook profiles and ran across these on JT's profile. I'm fairly sure he didn't take them, but I really liked these shots of downtown Houston.

This one's my favorite.

I absolutely love the Houston skyline at night.

While it's no Joseph City, I've enjoyed living in this area.

Cool place - not cool in temperature, however (usually).

MLK Holiday

We were so happy to have the day off for Martin Luther King Day. We got a bunch of friends and headed to downtown Houston. We had heard that there were tunnels below much of downtown. Most of us had never been there, so we went to check it out. I actually don't have any pictures of the tunnels! They were mostly filled with restaurants and reminded us of an airport. We headed up to the street and ended up walking around and taking photos. It was a cold and overcast day, but we still had fun.

Here are 3 of the 4 roommates after emerging from the tunnels.

Here's the group minus Jen who is taking the picture. L-R we have Nichole, Abraham, Lesley, Adam, Nate, Susannah, me, Megan, Kim, and Patrice.

I love this picture. On some of the taller buildings, you couldn't see the tops of them because of the fog.

I got a picture with the boys - we tried to get it so we could see the top of the building. It was too steep.

The Houston Public Library had amazing architecture. We took a few pictures in front of it.

Here we are in front of one of the windows of the library.

Across from the library was a great park with some awesome live oak trees.

This pool was also at the park.

We came to another park area and got creative with the pictures. The video at the bottom is at this park.

We still had time left so we decided to head to the zoo. It was actually free on MLK day! Yahoo! We headed to the gift shop and had some fun. Here's Susannah the stylish zoo keeper.

Adam and I tried on some animal masks.

Nichole, Susannah, Abraham, Adam, and Kim gave the tunnel in the rain forest exhibit a try.Lesley, Jen, Megan, and I had to have our turn.

Our final group picture at the entrance/exit as we were leaving. Fun day!

Here's the side view and below is a view from the front!

Macho Men

I had a couple of pictures that I needed to add to a post somewhere. This little Macho Men title seems the best solution.

Travis came for a visit recently to interview for Dental School and has now proved that jeans with embroidered pockets are now very fashionable - even for men.

Adam really impressed us by setting up my Christmas present - gas logs for the fireplace. Nice job!

Isn't it beautiful?!?!?!?

More Utah

My trip to Allie's wedding was a short one, but I managed to visit a few people. Sadly, my awesome cousins on my dad's side weren't among them! Next time!

I met several friends at my favorite Provo restaurant - Cafe Rio. L-R we have Richard, Joe, me, Jessica, Phuong, and Elliott. The guy on the right randomly hopped in the picture. Nice. My brother is taking the picture. He attacked me with snowballs right before this.

We played games at Jessica's after dinner where Dan joined us!

Here's the crew minus me and plus Richard's friend Joe.

Richard took a picture with me in it. Elliott looks SUPER happy.

While I was in SLC, I visited my Uncle Darl and Aunt Norma. Norma is my mom's oldest sister.

My grandma lives with them. It's a really cute picture of her, but somehow, I look like a giant.

Here's me with cute little Adam. I wish I could have spent more time with him!

Madison 5

My junior year at BYU was one of my best years ever! My roommates that year were fantastic. We lived in Liberty Square - Madison 5. I headed to UT last weekend for Allie's wedding - one of my all time favorite people and roommates. I actually lived with her for 2 school years. The first year we lived in Heritage Halls (Fox).

Here's Allie with her siblings: (L-R) Stephanie, Jen, Jeff, Allie, Kim, and Courtney. These guys were like my second family when I was at BYU. Jen lived with us as well at Liberty Square.

Allie's hilarious. She wore these huge, ugly boots under her dress. It was cold!

Awww! BFF!

Allie and Brett make a really cute couple. He's a great guy (and lucky)!

Here's a little mixed-year roommate shot. Malana's on the left. She was our roommate in Heritage Halls. I grew up with Malana in Joseph City. On the far right is Carly, roommate from Liberty Square.

Here are the Liberty Square roommates at the reception. L-R is me, Carly, Allie, Wendy, Nicole, and Jen. We're only missing one - Jamie where are you?!?!?! Allie went to Jerusalem after the first semester that school year and Nicole moved in to replace her. Nicole knew Allie and Jen from home.

All changed and ready for the honeymoon! New Zealand and Fiji!!!!! No fair!

Malana and I hung out with Carly for a bit after the reception. Carly, thanks for letting me stay with you!!!!

Here's the video I took of them coming out of the temple!

Staying . . . for now

Initially we were going to have a going away/birthday party for Adam, but it got changed to just a birthday party because Adam may not be leaving. There's some VISA kinks that need to get worked out so he can go to Korea.

This is the birthday cake I made for him. If you can't tell by the plethora of pictures, I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

I really liked the mint leaves touch.

Luckily I made some cupcakes with the extra batter so people could snack before we cut the cake.

Here's Adam being over dramatic with the candle blowing.

Besides it being Adam's party, it was also 3 other friends' birthdays - Kristin, Bradford and Seana. We made a little birthday cupcake for Kristin.

Josh and Sus

Abraham and Sus (they had to take a stripe picture).

Here muscle woman Susannah shows her strength.

Blowing out the candles. He thought I was taking a still shot so he's moving REALLY slowly.

Yat eh!

I took advantage of my Christmas break from school and headed down do AZ the first week in January.

I had a blast hanging out with the Mulders and their friend Derek.

One of my favorite things about being around Kristal is when she prank calls people. She's a master. She has two specialties: Chinese and Navajo - neither of which she speaks. She's mastered the accents of them, though and sure makes it sound good. Here she is calling "Mexican" with her Navajo impression. I believe the call initially had something to do with fry bread. The video started in the middle of the call.

Citrus Creativity

My mom learned something really cool from someone she knows - I can't remember who. What you do, is get some lemons and some peppermint sticks (the dinner mint textured ones). Cut a small hole in the lemon, heat it in the microwave for about 10 seconds, and then stick in the peppermint and suck away!

Here are the Bushman girls giving it a shot.

My mom's so cute!

My dad is in the video at the very bottom.

I also gave it a try on my recent Arizona trip. These ones didn't work quite as well. Kristal made a little lemon man out of hers.

The third attempt was just a few days ago here in Houston. Adam, Jen, Susannah, and I had a good time, but these didn't work as well as the first time either. Oh well!

Awww!

Adam's being daring here. We found out on the first attempt that juice that falls out, even though it's pink, is not as sweet as the juice that comes up the makeshift straw. It's pretty darn sour!

He got a lot of juice out of that lemon!