God be With You...

...till we meet again.

On October 4, 2011, my sweet Grandpa passed away. It all happened so fast and I don't know that I was quite ready for it. Then again, I don't know if you can really prepare yourself for things like this. Nonetheless, I was grateful that he didn't suffer and that he passed peacefully. I love my Grandpa and I miss him. But I was talking to a friend of mine who told me that now I can become closer to him than I was before he died. Why you ask? Well because now he doesn't have a frail body and a lost mind that doesn't remember who I am. I can still talk to him and show him new stuff I learn or what's going on in my life, and I know he's there. Listening and caring to everything I have to say.

The viewing and funeral services were really beautiful. I'm so glad that I have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life so that I KNOW that I will see my Grandpa again. I KNOW that we will be reunited as a family, and I KNOW that if I stay strong and keep the commandments, I don't have to be sad. All will be well.

Here are a few pictures of the viewing/funeral:

I love to see...

the TEMPLE.

I'll go inside someday. I'll covenant with my Father. I'll promise to obey.

For the temple is a holy place, where we are sealed together. As a child of God, I've learned this truth...



A family is FOREVER.

Giant Spiritual Genius.

I had the most wonderful opportunity to go to Education Week this year at BYU-Idaho. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically EFY but for older people. Needless to say, it is absolutely amazing. If you are looking for a spiritual boost or perhaps just an escape from day-to-day tasks, then this is the place to go. My "little sister" came with me and I couldn't have been more excited for that! We had a fantastic time. We laughed and cried and grew in so many ways. We were drenched in spiritual knowledge and did our best to soak it all up. I had a great time and I thought I would share a few of the highlights/memories that we captured on film with you all. Enjoy!

Fun.

My goodness. It feels as though it has been ages since I blogged....oh wait. That's probably because it has been! Sheesh. I am a slacker. I don't know who, or if anyone reads this, but if you do, I apologize for being so lame and not sharing things with you. So a lot has happened since I last blogged. I would like to share quite a bit of what has gone on, but not all in one post. It would make me...as well as you crazy. I don't know many people who love to read ginormicous blog posts. I don't like them. Therefore, I will just post a bunch of posts that are smaller and more entertaining :)

Ok. So. I got some fabulous pictures from my aunt that were taken at my cousins bridal shower. They are quite epic. I'm not sure if I really should post these, but alas, I will. I hope that you get a good laugh out of them if nothing else. Here is a small glimpse into my personality and those you will see with me :)

A day...

in the mountains can work wonders on the soul :) See for yourself!...

(Fruit dip=food of the Gods)

(Isn't my motha so cute!?)

(Even Jezz enjoyed herself)

(Food and games are all you need.)

(I took up a bag with crayons and coloring books in it, and I happened to find some acrylic paint at the bottom of the bag. I couldn't resist!)

(I fell asleep listening to this)

( Kathryn is a cutie too!)

(What's camping without a uke and some jams??)

Nouveau Projet

I finally got her :)

My dear Aunt Shir has this bike, that I've wanted for pretty much my whole life. In fact even my mom has wanted it her whole life. Now mind you, this is no ordinary bike. It happens to be a 40+ year old tandem bicycle!! My heart has always been set on owning this bike and now it's finally mine! I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to fix this sweet thing up! Lucky for me, my home teacher is a bike expert and can get me awesome discounts for the parts I need. I'm going to make her look amazing! I want to have it finished soon so that I can take it to California and ride it along the beach. I've always always always wanted to ride a tandem bike on the beach and know I can...with my very own Daisy. Yay!! I hope you love her as much as I do :)

Pinterest

So I just started a pinterest account thingy. I had been hearing a bit of chatter about it and I thought I would check it out. I feel like an idiot. I feel clueless to how to really make this work and make it cool and worth looking at. I am not very good at browsing the web to find cool and inspirational things. Perhaps that's really why I joined it. To be able to surf and find my way around using browsers and be able to find things that really interest me. I think, in the end, it will be cool. It'll be worth me stressing over trying to find things I love, to pin up to all the boards. The possibilities are limitless with this thing. I hope one day I figure it all out and can save of the things I love to a site I can refer to whenever I want. It will hopefully be a good learning experience for me once I finally figure out what the crap to do. Ha. Wish me luck :)

LDS.org

Ok so I know I'm a little behind the bandwagon here, but I just made myself a LDS.org account a week ago or so. Holy cow. It is so amazing! I strongly encourage those of you who don't have one, to get one! I have been sort of playing around with it these days and it is just great! The Study Notebook is awesome. It keeps things that I highlight or mark and then I can organize everything. And I'm even beginning to actually keep a journal. I hate to write in a journal, but typing I can do. Having it online and secure, for real, makes me very happy inside :) Yay for LDS.org! What an amazing experience it was to get that going. I can't wait to do more exploring.

Along those same church topics...I thought that I would share a little testimony builder that I have recently had. I hope this isn't too personal, but I feel like sharing. Maybe it will help someone out there who is struggling. Here goes:

A good friend of mine who's serving a mission right now has an awesome Mission President that wanted the entire mission to read the Book of Mormon. There are a bunch of things that you have to mark with different colors and such while reading. It's over a 12 week time period so that means about 7 pages of reading per day. Well, the President invited the missionaries to let family members know about it. Lucky for me, his mom thought of me too. I can honestly say that I think the Lord inspired her to send it to me. Anywho, I was soooo excited about it. I couldn't wait. And I have been doing it pretty well (it started May 18th). The other day though I realized that I was actually farther behind then I thought. So as I was going to bed at like 10:30 I decided I would read like...one days worth just so I don't keep getting farther and farther behind. Jokes on me! I was so sucked into that book that I couldn't put it down! I stayed awake for a good two hours just hanging on every word in the Book of Mormon. For years and years have I been wanting an experience like this, and boy did I get it! It was just about the coolest experience I have ever had. I was so into what I was reading that I cried when King Noah killed Abinadi. I wanted to call out and warn Alma and his 450 followers that the armies were coming. I wanted to slap Limhi for binding Ammon and those guys when he thought they were Noah's priests. It was epic. I have never had such a stronger testimony of the Book of Mormon and the words that are in it. From doing this challenge, I have been so blessed that I can't even begin to tell you about how I've changed and grown. I can tell you that I've never had a stronger desire to be good and to keep the commandments. I can feel the Spirit more in me than I have even when I was a young and good haha. It has been such a blessing. I can't wait to keep reading and reading and reading some more! Joseph Smith Jr. was not kidding when he said we would draw closer to God by this book than any other.

I'm so grateful that I could do this and I hope that somehow you can all experience this if you haven't already.

Good vs. Evil

While driving to work today, we started talking about dreams that we've had. Well just the other night I had the weirdest dream. I thought that maybe I was just insane, but I just decided that it actually was a cool dream. Before I go into a little more detail, let me just give some background info. Comic/Superhero movies are the new thing right now. I love that they are, but they are on my mind ALL the time. The night that I had this really weird dream was after I had just seen "Thor" for the second time with my dad and sister. Also, there were like 4 previews for new superhero movies coming out. With that background...let's get to the dream.

Like most dreams I have, and I think other people's as well, I have no idea where this dream started. That being said, what I remember is it being dark and I was in outer space. I was on some sort of huge ship thing. Something maybe like Star Trek. Apparently I was the captain or something. People kept coming to me and asking questions and I was directing and supervising and such. We were preparing for war. It was good vs. evil, and I was to be the leader of the good side. Come to find out, I actually was fighting Satan and his armies. It was going to be the most epic of all battles, and I knew it. We were preparing and getting our weapons and supplies ready and what not. Then it was time. "Evil's" ship pulled up by us and the war began. It was crazy. People were getting killed and killing like mad. The weirdest thing though was that we were all fighting with light sabres. Epic right?? Ya, it was intense. We fought and fought and fought. Finally it was time...for me to face Satan. It was crazy. I can't really remember the whole fight, but I'm pretty sure I got pretty messed up and so did he. In the end, I won. I conquered Satan and the Evil army. We were about to have a party to celebrate our victory....and then I woke up.

What a dream huh? I didn't think much of it, but it is so cool that in my mind I can see myself winning a war against Satan. Subconsciously I conquered. Perhaps I am just a weirdy, but that means a lot to me. I know that I can beat him, and that I have power of him. I will most definitely come out on top. I can't wait to have de-ja-vu of that dream. :) Satan better get ready, because one day I am going to kick his trash...maybe even with a light sabre. Haha :)

Geographer - Kites

And here is another awesome song! I never realized the wonders that you can find on iTunes. It was so great to just search the store and find wonderful music like this. I hope you enjoy it :)

PS...I also very much love "Original Sin" by Geographer as well. It really is just so good. I drove home from PC jamming to these guys with my windows down. Pure bliss.

Foster The People - Helena Beat

So I was just browsing iTunes when I decided to go to "Albums under $8" when I found this band. Um...ya. I totally love them. Let me know what you think :)

Memorable Memorial Day...Part 2

Here are the pictures of the flood that I promised. They aren't really in any particular order, but you can see that it was quite the ordeal. We got there at 6 AM and worked until about 11:30. It was pretty intense.