Birthday Celebrations

I just recently celebrated my birthday. It was on Saturday, the 25th. We began the festivities early with Susannah and I taking the day off school on Friday.

We went down to IKEA and got a few things and had lunch at Chacho's, probably my favorite Texas Mexican food place. Thanks to Whitney for introducing me to it. I was shocked at the amount of leftovers two people had.

That night we went to the Miller Outdoor Theater to watch some Chinese Acrobats. Kim, Kirsten, Nate, and his kids joined us there as well. It started pouring and we got soaked, but luckily they opened up the covered seating area early and we got some seats. Unfortunately, I was under a leaky area of roof and continued to get soaked. We were freezing!

Us girls came back and dried off, had hot chocolate, and soaked our feet in my tub!

It was very relaxing. We even ate leftover chips and queso in the tub!

We had a few people over on Saturday evening. Nate surprised me with his kids singing to me and bringing me presents. It was so cute!

I like this group shot. We almost got everyone looking at the camera!

Kirsten got fancy with the picture taking, but I really like these. The kids were so excited to give me the presents they picked out.

It was hilarious! Junior opened one for me.

After Nate's crew left, we had some Navajo tacos and dressed up a little like our Native American friends.

The lens got a little smudged on this one, but we wanted to show off our braids.

We even did some war paint - sort of similar to Lord of the Rings as well.

Kirsten looked dangerous.

Here's our painted face action shot.In this one we just tried to look tough. Katherine had been having a rough time keeping a straight face, but she did pretty well in this one. It was Stacie who kept smiling! :)

Who's that Spartan in my tepee? It's me! It's me!

We had the traditional birthday cheesecake! It was delicious! Thanks to Susannah and all my great friends!

Neti Pot

One of the last times we were in San Angelo visiting our parents, my mom showed us this nifty little nasal cleaner called the Neti Pot. My mom LOVES it. Susannah tried it when we were there and also became a fan.

When my parents came out here on Conference weekend, they brought Susannah a little surprise - her very own Neti Pot. I have yet to try it and looking below, you might see why.

I'm really happy that Susannah let me take these pictures. You pour the salty solution through one nostril (the spout fits comfortably in), it travels through your nasal cavity and out the other nostril. Turn and repeat. Apparently, it really cleans you out.

See how much fun she's having? I'm still not sold! :)

Dancing Queen

Last weekend was Stacie's birthday. We celebrated by going bowling.

It was also kind of a farewell to Julie who headed back up to Alaska for the summer. We're sad she left. She sent herself off in style by dancing in the back of Katherine's truck for us.

I took this video not remembering that my camera doesn't flip the video when I turn it! Dang it! She was making us laugh so hard!

She got Kirsten in on the action. Sorry about the shirt up action at the end. Julie was imitating one of Kirsten's 8th graders at a school dance. He kept dancing with his shirt up and she had to keep telling him to put it down. She can imitate him so well.

I love this dance the girls did. Love the Jackson 5!
The best part of the night was Julie dancing up to Nate. He didn't know what to do with the whole situation. I've never seen him embarrassed until that night.

I love this concerned look on his face. Julie rocks!

Crazy Rain

We had the craziest rainstorm the other day. It had been raining off and on that day and the day before. Susannah, Kirsten and I decided to make a quick Wal-Mart run. It was raining when we got out, but just lightly. As we were shopping, we heard it start to pour. There was loud thunder too. Once I got checked out, I went to get the car and pick up the girls and groceries. It was pouring! I was literally drenched by the time I got out to the car. The water in the parking lot was already up past my ankles and we had only been in there for 30 - 40 minutes! Once I picked up the girls, we started to leave the parking lot, but saw that the water from the parking lot to the road was way too high. We tried a couple of other options with no luck. I finally found one exit that wasn't up too high. As I was driving on our street, I had to show way down because the water was coming up over my hood!!!! The following videos and pictures are of us once we got home!

This is just showing how deep the water is. It's up over the whole curb, including my house number!

Sorry, here's the retelling of the story!

Susannah and Kirsten got daring and decided to run out in the rain.I snapped this one of Kirsten to show how wet she was after running out to her car for something!The backyard got pretty swampy! This was an impressive storm. I'm glad nothing flooded!

Happy Easter!

Canoe Trip

We went on our second annual Good Friday canoe trip. If you look back a year on my blog, you'll see some very similar pictures.

We met near Kountze, TX on Friday morning. There were 62 people in our group. We had to snap a before shot.

Here are some of the girls in our group right before we shoved off. We had a fun group this time - no guys came with us from our ward, though.

This one guy had his wife, two kids, mom, and mother-in-law with him. In this canoe it was him, his little boy, and his mother-in-law. The little boy needed a nap and couldn't fall asleep so he constructed this little shelter over the boat. It worked nicely.

Julie had a whole pirate thing going on. At one point down the river she had us all making mean faces. Hers was pretty scary, I just couldn't get a good shot of it.

This was a picture of some of the tents set up after the first day of rowing. We rowed about 12 miles that day and finished the last 7 on Saturday. The weather was so nice!

Nate was nice enough to let us borrow his tent. Sometime during the night, the little porch front of it collapsed. Luckily no one was sleeping out there or they would have been in for a rude awakening.

I can't believe I'm posting this, but I did give Julie a wedgie. This picture is just a reinactment. She had thrown a plastic snake in our canoe the day before and totally deserved it, though!

Here we are - still friends! :)

Stacie and Julie buried Samira and made an interesting body for her. They added a 3rd arm in honor of our FHE video where Nate has 3 arms.

Julie and Samira went for a swim out by our campsite. Julie was trying to jump off the sand bar into the deeper area. This was her 3rd attempt.

Katherine taught us a water game called 10. During the game Stacie accidentally got Susannah with her nail.

The river was so pretty. Here's one of my favorite shots.

Katherine and Ben tried to be daring and go under this log, but they couldn't quite fit. This was a great trip!

General Conference

It was another great General Conference weekend. The talks on both Saturday and Sunday sessions were just what I needed to hear.

I found this picture on the Internet. Credit goes to George Frey/Getty Images. It was exciting to see Elder Andersen put in as one of the 12 Apostles. If you didn't get a chance to listen to the talks, click here!
Another fun thing of note was the fact that my parents came this weekend, just for fun. It was great to see them.

While the guys were at the Priesthood session of conference, 8 of us girls (including my mom) headed to Chuy's to celebrate Laura's birthday. Kirsten and Julie were brave and did the Electric Slide when the song came on in the restaurant.
Julie had heard lots of stories about my dad on our trip to Florida. We told her how he used to say "Want me to show you a little trick I learned in the Army?" even though he was never in the Army. He'd then pull some sort of wrestling move or some sort of hold on people. When she met my dad, after he got home from the priesthood session, she said his own quote to him and then tried unsuccessfully to clap his hands together (he still does that mean trick to people). He got a kick out of it.

We finished off the night with Nick joining the party. He and Kirsten broke out the guitars and kept us very entertained. What a great weekend!

Girl at Harvard

Day of Faith: Personal Quests for a Purpose - 3. Rachel Esplin from Harvard Hillel on Vimeo.
This is a fantastic video that was done about 5 months ago. A Latter-day Saint student at Harvard answers questions about Mormonism. It's 21 minutes, so watch when you have some time. Thanks to the 2 friends who emailed this to me!

Only at an elementary school!

Ever since I can remember, my dad's been picking things up off the road. He has an eagle eye for coins especially. He could spot them from a mile away and would always pick them up. I believe that he paid for his tuition of his Freshman year at BYU with change.

Anyway, being the daughter that I am, I also pick up change in parking lots and other places I happen to be walking. Imagine my shock/disappointment the other day when I picked up a penny in my elementary school parking lot and it was PLASTIC! I guess it wasn't my lucky day after all!