not letting me post any

PICTURES!!!!!

The last 9 months....

get ready this is the speedy version of life.

GRADUATION PARTY!!!!!!!!

Ok, just a quick recaps on what has been happening. The end of July was my graduation, which was a big hit.
-my dad, my brother Rory and his wife Katy flew out from Utah.
-party was fabulous, we had lot of good food, and plenty of friends, and best of all you got it-KAROAKE…

AFTER GRAD party
NYC, Statue of Liberty, Shore, ice cream, lines, traffic, Empire State building, Lion King-which had a little glitch, traffic, lightening storms, rain and lots of it, and TRAFFIC.

The REST of 2009
-Apple picking, which I love…every year we go to Fishkill, NY…its about an hour an half away. As usual more than a couple families join and then after picking we head home for baking lots of yummy stuff. Who can make the best? (Apple Pie, Apple Streudal, cookies, and breads….caramel apple and different candy toppings, were some of the deliciousness, apple dip.)

-December
* My friend Maegan was doing an internship in Harrisburg, PA, which is close to Hershey, PA, so of course one of my best friends Jenn and I took a trip to visit her for the weekend. We snuck in her room for the two nights we were there, and traveled to Gettysburg, which was amazing and a little on the cold side. Then off to the outlets for some great deals on boots, of course we didn’t only buy boots but we came home with a packed up car. I thought Gettysburg was AMAZING, all the cemeteries, and the museums…truly wonderful.

* went to Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden, appearances by Jordan Sparks, Taylor Swift, Justin Beiber, John Mayer, Dr. Collins-was one of the presenters, many more were on the stage, I can’t remember all the others. Stopped for a few moments in front of the Macy's window Christmas display.
* SHREK on Broadway before it leaves the stage….sooo funny.



CHRISTMAS:
Spent it in Utah at my parents house….with my sister Ronna and her family, by brothers and sister-in-law……and the dogs. (also had the chance to catch up a few movies, and CAFÉ RIO) what a joy it is to go home to my parents. I love it. I was also very lucky because I reconnected with a friend from Star Valley, Wyoming...we hadn't seen each other in about 22 years....IT WAS SO EXCITING and fun to see her.

2011 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

*Off to a good start, I finally have set the goal to walk in the Avon Breast Cancer walk this October 15-16. It is 39 miles….I have been walking a couple times a week, at first I wanted to hurry and get it over, but you can’t speed time up, so I just walk for about and hour and a half three times a week, then each week I tag on an extra mile or so…

*CUT my hair short, well not that short, but I decided on BANGS…I haven’t had those since I was probably 9, so a really long time ago.. I LOVE IT!!!!!

*Washington DC, I am so lucky to have such good friends-seriously…Jenn and I again touring the Eastern seaboard, its like our annual trip every Jan/Feb. We headed down there for the church bookstore, but we stayed in Downtown, and took our time seeing some of the sites. We actually TOOK our time, which doesn’t happen too often. We went to the National Cemetery-truly amazing, what a spiritual place. How often we take for granted out country and the freedom, this was a reminder of how I am so lucky to be apart of this country and have the possibilities that are here. Thank you to all of our military-past, present and future. We went to one of the COOLEST places ever, the INTERNATIONAL Spy place, it was such an exciting place, and so very clever the way they had everything stand out. It was so interesting to find out about all the gadgets and gizmos that were used and what they were used for and how they were used. WOW…I LOVED IT!

*Surprise party for my sister Ronna in Palo Alto, California. It’s a wonder that I don’t life in San Francisco, since it seems I travel there a lot. This trip was so fun, it was my sisters 30th and my dad’s 60th birthday, a day apart. My parents, Rory and Katie, Lauren, Ryan and I flew into surprise her. S-parties are so fun to plan and so fun to be apart of….I LOVE IT!!! We all “snuck” into California on a Thursday or Friday and then had the weekend to celebrate the big days. The party was at my brothers girlfriends house and JR-Ronnas husband took care of everything else. She was surprised by only half of the family coming in and then was really SURPRISED when she got to the house an realized the party was for her. HAHAHAHA-we had such a blast and I loved spending every minute with my family. It was such a busy, short weekend, that I was so exhausted when I came home, it took me a whole week to get back on a regular schedule.

King Tut Exhibit

* For Claires day off which was a teachers conference day, we went into the city with our friends who use to live dowtown and who now are suburbia folks. We had a really great time, the exhibit was amazing and worth the million bucks we paid...we ended with a yummy lunch at Carmines, which also was a really great experience. A big shout out to ELLEN, CHAR-CHAR, and Maggie-thanks guys!!!!!!!

*I have to end with the busy life that keeps me from blogging, scrapbooking, catching up on all my books that I want to read, and that would be my calling in primary. I am the 1st president in the primary presidenc-SERIOUSLY-so crazy…..its more than a job. But I will try to keep up on at least posting short/small blogs.

*oh yeah this year, my girl trip that I go on every year has went from 5 people down to 2, my friend Jill and I will be going to PERU….EXCITING!!!!!I can’t wait.

NO I DIDN'T....

APRIL FOOLS DAY!!!!! 

But I changed the background...thats a new start.

I lied....

there will have to be another post  about my grad...it is coming soon....I promise.

Summer Vacations

This entry will cover the last three and one half months, so get ready, sit back and make sure you are ready for the ride…

            -This summer was really busy for me, I did a lot of traveling, more than usual in such a short amount of time.

A. (2^nd trip)  I came back from my girls’ trip for a couple of days, left to go down to the Jersey shore for my good friend Theresa’s wedding.  She looked so happy and truly amazing.  The service was nice and the wedding reception was at her shore house, another beautiful place.  I don't have any pictures of this particular event.  Sorry...

B.  (3rd trip)  I came back from the wedding on a Sunday night, did laundry and left early the next morning for San Francisco to help my sister Ronna move from San Bruno to Palo Alto.  It was a great time again...but it was very tiring...she hired me to come out there and move her, and that I did.  It was a wonderful and smart move on their part.  She moved into this beautiful old house on the corner of a coveted street, it is famous for living on because all the neighbors get along.  There are many children who live in this neighborhood, as soon as we parked the car in front of the house, we had 7 children between the ages of 2-10 helping us with a few adult hands.  It was great, my nieces and nephews were in heaven.  They couldn't really play in there last neighborhood because of living on the upside of a steep hill and now they are in the dead center of play central.  They helped us unload and brought over yummy food that night and the next couple of days.  Thanks to all of them for their generosity and love, we were very grateful.  My sister had babysitters and new best friends for her children all in a couple of days.  I did get annoyed though because my sister being the social little butterfly that she is decided to organize a 4th of July parade the day of.  Even though we had many boxes to unload, the best of it was that also volunteered to paint faces, but the paint was in a box.  I was upset and angry about now and told her she was crazy.   Let me tell you how much fun she had, kids were coming in and out all day, adults were coming in and out both to get painted and bringing goodies around.  It was fantastic in the end, I was impressed with the whole thing.  We did the parade and the kids/parents were so happy.  It was great!  Thanks Ronna!   The pictures I am adding are the ones from my sisters blog as I again do not have any...I need to get a camera.  I left on the 5th and was home for a week before heading out again.

FYI:  I only have pics of whale watching and P-town, and one of the beach.

C. (4th trip)  I went up to Cape Cod with the Sharbaugh’s and another family that shared a house with us.  We stayed on the south side of the Cape-south/east Falmouth.  I was blessed to do a lot of exciting things.   I rode from the house down to Woods Hole, which is where the ferry takes you and your car across to Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard.  It was such a great day….very sunny and beautiful.   I drove up to Provincetown with Claire and Mia where we passed a drive-in movie theatre-this I get to you later.  Once we got to Provincetown we parked and walked around to the ferry where we got to ride and whale watch.   This was truly amazing, so many whales, there were three different kinds of whales, and boy were they HUGE…It was amazing.  We then ended the day climbing a look out tower and going to the Pilgrims Monument.  The tower had a great view of P-town and the northern tip of the Cape.  I took Sarah and Emma the next night to the drive in to watch Harry Potter, it was their first time and of course there was a double feature-Ghost of Girlfriends Past, it seemed they enjoyed their first time.  They stuffed themselves with popcorn, pizza, milkshakes, and other junk.  We had a great time.  We all went to Martha’s Vineyard the next day and walked around to all the fun expensive shops,  and enjoyed ourselves at this delicious, beautiful restaurant on the water…The most interesting of it all was being able to go to the National Seashore and sit on these huge sand dunes next to the ocean.  Also there was this great place to eat called The Beachcomber-I think.  I had a wonderful time and enjoyed myself thoroughly; it was an amazing trip, a big thanks to the Sharbaughs and the Laytons on getting such a fantastic place.   Also for letting me barrow their kids so I didn’t have to go by myself. 

C.  I came back on my own because I had to start getting ready for the party-my graduation party…but I also had a friend come and stay with me for a couple of days.  Actually he was a good friend of mine-Mike Emsweiler and his girlfriend.  They were visiting from Texas for a week and stayed with me the later part of their trip….it was her first time coming out here, but that didn’t stop me from having them both help me out with the party stuff.  They stayed and the next day my brother Rory and his wife Katie came.

whatever

Ok, so I will have the rest of the summer on goings by the end of the week...this one killed me...

It's about time..

We saw these ladies who were from Utah...totally Mormons...it was so funny, they were traveling with a group of friends as well.

I realize that it has been a really long time since I last wrote...a lot has happend which means a lot to write, so I will write in segments. First off, to start where I left off, after my graduation my summer started. I went on my yearly girl trip, this year was different because we ended up staying here in the states. We all met in San Francisco and stayed at my sister house in San Bruno which is about 15 minutes from downtown SF. Jill, Jenn and I got into SF on Friday night, Meagen got in on Sat. afternoon. So we went to costco and got stuff for our trip. We then headed into SF until we needed to pick Maeg up. WE drove up and down the steep SF hills, and went to a famous bakery-forgot the name of it though and had really yummy crossants and ham-n-cheese quiche. Then it was time to pick Maeg up from the airport. Picked her up then headed down back into the city to start our fun stuff. We started off walking across the Golden Gate bridge which was a little over a mile each way. What a view this was, it was amazing, so blue and pristine, you could see Alcatraz island, the Bay Bridge to the south of Alcatraz and the beautiful view of SF, overlooking the bay. What an amazing time we had with the fresh air and the views. I forgot to mention we could see Oakland across the way. After the bridge we went to Navy Pierre and had the famous Bouden sour dough bread bowls with the chowder. The bakery where they make all the bread turned out to be really neat, we didn't go in but the window display of all the figurines they made was cool to see. We then walked up to Ghiradelhi square where we enjoyed a brownie sunday and hot chocolate that was given to us for free since we walked into the cafe that was downstairs and they were closing. I ended up giving my hot chocolate to a homeless man, it was too much for me. We had such a great day that we were exhausted and headed back to my sisters house. We then woke up the next morning went to her ward and had sacrament and left right after to head down the coast of California. Our rental car was amazing and HUGE-which was the right decision for us and ALL of our belongings.

This was AWESOME!!!! Jill drove and Jenn sat in the front seat, Maeg and I sat in the back and climbed over each other to take pics as we were driving down the windy, narrow road. Us in the backseat hung out and took video and pics...it was quite histerical, my hair was blowing in my eyes and face, I got bruises on my arms from leaning on the lock buttons, but it was all worth it. We made it down to Half moon Bay and ate outside with our fish and chips...it was delicious, we were visited by the seals in the bay, swimming around...they were so dang cute. We then hopped in our car and headed back on the coastal road until we hit the Hearst castle, well technically the parking long of the castle. We thought it was pretty much on the road, but it was so far away from us and we still had a long time to make it to Bakersfield to sleep. It was around 4 p.m. and we were nautious from the ride...all of us, I usually don't get to sick but I was ready to catch the first highway out and get to our hotel...We were on the coast for about 8-9 hours, then another 4 hours to Bakersfield where we stayed at a hotel. We slept a little and hopped back into the car the next morning to grab groceries from the closest grocery store.

We were so excited to get to our next destination-the south rim of one of the most beautiful places on earth-the south rim of the GRAND CANYON.....We made it and found our tent site, where we set up without the stakes-Jenn and I had sent our sleeping bags, the tent and a tarp out earlier, but I didn't check the tent to make sure everything was kosher-wished I would have. Luckily there was no wind, so we were fine not using the stakes. Setting up camp we found out the hard way that you really need to have hot pads, frying pan of some sort and a spatula to turn things over. Not just our tin foil. Our food turned out ok, and we had some really good treats from Maegs stasch which were gluten-free. We tried to sleep but with the rocks and snoring going on there really wasn't much of that. I ended up leaving the tent and went to the truck and read, falling asleep at some point. The next morning I took Jenn to one of the villages for her to catch the bus down to Skeleton Farm so she could catch the river waves. Along the way we saw about 6 head of Elk, they must have had 6-7 point rack, I forgot how big these animals were. The rest of us went on a hike. We wanted to do the 6-miler but ended up doing a 4-miler which was fine..it was hard and took most of the day..we were mesmerized by another breathtaking view around us. We saw a big horn sheep and talked with some of the workers on the trail. This was hard, but worth the hike, we also met really nice people on the hike. We also ran into some furry creatures-the friendly squirrels. let me tell you we had a one-eyed sqirrel sneak up on me and try to get into my shorts pocket-that was crazy..I freaked out while Jill was trying to get her camera and wouldn't help me-how rude. Anyways Mr. One-eyed trying to find food wherever we would sit...he wouldn't leave us alone...then he realized he wasn't getting anything from us and left. OH yeah we also saw the California Condors...they were huge and flew really close to us. We made it back to our camp site and started our dinner, we made yummy BBQ chicken...it was amazing and some other things, but I can't remember what else, except for we did have smores...yummy. That night the wind starts to pick up and we barrowed rope from the neighbors to tie the cover over the tent and keep it there, it didn't start raining until around 5a.m. and so we fine. But we also wanted to go and see more of the rim...because Jenn hadn't gotten to see it, so we headed out in the fog covered ground and the poor down, yes it was cold, but as soon as we got off the trolley and walked out to the rim, the fog started lifting meaning the rest of the time there we had another beautiful view.

We left and headed up to Las Vegas, where we were to finally get a shower and feel clean. We stopped at the Hoover Dam, which was really interesting to me, I took tons of pictures of the extension bridge they are building to avoid the Dam, it was awesome! I don’t think I would want that job, dangling 100’s of feet above the ground, and the water. When we pulled into Vegas we were calling out whose showering first. We stayed in the Excaliber, amazingly it was a few blocks away from an In and Out burger joint, of course I went there…it was Jenn and Jill’s first time ever going. They were amazed. Vegas is definitely a place that if you go there once that is plenty, it was dirty, nastiness was all over. However the best part was being able to have my parents come for the day, they chugged along with us on our daily trip of Vegas, where we wanted to see the Las Vegas temple and wanted to hit the Deseret Book store. As you can tell this stop was totally less demanding that other stops. We realized that we needed to have a personal photographer for the rest of our trip, my step-mom took Maegan’s camera and followed us around the whole day telling us to stop and pose. IT WAS GREAT, thanks KAY! (maybe when we are all rich we can hire her,) My parents had to leave and we needed to get ready for our long drive back to SAN FRAN.
Friday we left Las Vegas knowing we had about a 9 –hour drive, this was the one of the longest days we traveled, we pretty much drove until we hit Fresno where we stopped at the temple, and In and Out again…for the “animal style” cheeseburger…(let me tell you out of so many years of stopping at In and Out, I had never heard about their secret menu…thanks to Maegan we all fell in love with the animal style. Animal Style= sauted peppers and onions. We finally made it to the Oakland Temple in the early evening and walked around. This temple is on a hill over looking the bay area…boy it was amazing. We finished our night off and a really yummy French place that Ronna had gone to they night before and said it was delicious, boy she was right. It really was, we got dressed up and took in the 56 degree weather that was in downtown. It was cold, and we dressed for summer, early we were in about 100 degrees then all of a sudden, windy, chilly SF.
Our last day we hit Alcatraz, when we got there one of the last security guards was there and gave us a rundown on what it was like when he was employed, what the prisoners were like and what it was like living on the island. Imagine your children getting babysat by some of the prisoners. Yes there were children on the island, workers had families that lived here. It was all fascinating to me. Alcatraz is a must see. We all were so exhausted from our car drive that we were excited to get on a plane and get to our homes-especially our beds and have a good night sleep, it was a sad goodbye-as usual because we didn’t want to leave, Jill going to a job that she hates, Maeg not knowing what would happen with an internship that she wouldn’t know about it until later. So long my friends, looking forward to our next years trip to PERU.