The Big 2-4!

I can't believe that Kyle is 24 today. It seems so old and we are not ready to be grown ups yet so its a little weird. Doesn't 24 seem like you have to act like grown ups now? I don't know if that will ever happen but because Kyle is now 24 I thought I would write 24 things I love about him. :)

1. That he is mine for all eternity

2. He is so incredibly handsome

3. Patient

4. Loves me for me, even when I'm a crazy person

5. Active and busy all the time

6. Hardworker

7. Funny, he always makes me laugh

8. He sings these crazy made up songs to me very day

9. Loves to travel with me

10. A handyman and can fix anything

11. So muscley

12. His big puppy dog eyes

11. His laugh, you can't help but laugh with him

12. His kisses and hugs

13. Even-tempered, I really need to learn more from him

14. His strength and love for the gospel

15. He is so comfy and cuddly, he doesn't like it as much as I do but he will come around

16. He is so cute with kids and will be a great Dad

17. Thoughtful

18. Gives me a hug and kiss before he leaves every morning

19. Athletic, he is good at everything he does

20. A good cook

21. Smart

22. Trustworthy and honest in everything he does

23. Busy body, you can never so him down

24. And most of all he loves me too!

I really could go on forever. I just love this Guy! Happy Birthday Loves!!

Go Cougars

About 5 years ago Kyle took me to a BYU Game and we haven't be back since. I love football and we both have been wanting to go to a game for a while so we were both really excited when we came across a couple tickets. Just our luck that it was the coldest, rainiest day of the season.

We went to the game in-between the down pours. It ended up being perfect!

It was a close call but we won! Perfect ending! Thank you Bishop Mella for the great tickets. We had a lot of fun.

Moab Once Again

In September we took a trip to Moab. It was so fun to be there with everybody that could make it this year. We had a lot of first timers so we got to see a lot of things again.

First tradition...Frog Hunting. Jason was such a trooper. He was wading around in the gross cold water but it paid off.

Us at Dead Horse Point

Second tradition... cliff jumping! I think this is a family favorite. Here Kyle and Nick are doing their back flips.

Third tradition...Arches. You can't go down to Moab and not hike a trail or two in Arches. It is a really beautiful place.

Sintra, Portugal

Pretty sad that we have been home for over two months and I am finally posting the last part of our trip. I wish we could go back soon so bad. It was the most amazing trip ever! I loved that Kyle and I were together traveling around his mission.

This picture has a little bit of a story. We are at the Tour de Belem. It is about 30 feet out on the water so you walk out on a dock to get to it. It was closed so I turned around to take a picture and if you look hard you can see that my left knee is bent a little bit. I had the tip of my toe on the ground...or so I thought... I actually was putting my toe off the side of the dock on accident and my flip flop dropped 10 feet below into the ocean. It was a lost cause. The next 1.5 miles I walked on the cobblestone with one shoe until we found a Chinese store and bought me some super cute new shoes! I guess it was all that bad. :)

The Quinta da Regaleira in is the most pretty city called Sintra. It is a castle surrounded by some really pretty gardens.

Also on the top of the mountain in Sintra is the Pena Palace. I can't even start to explain how amazing this palace is. I was so disappointed that we couldn't take any pictures inside. It was A. Mazing! SOOO much detail and hard work was put into everything there. The tiles, walls, furniture, landscaping, outside walls and courtyard of the palace...

Here is small sample of the palace grounds. It was acres and acres of greenery and trees from all over the world. There were California Redwoods and trees from China and Africa.

These trees were really cool. The bottom branches came out and formed a J shape and then grew upward. It said they were from the Western United States???

From the Pena Palace you can see the Moorish Castle. The Moorish ruled a lot of the area back in about the 9th - 10th century.

Kyle walking along the outer wall of the Moorish Castle.

Our last days in Portugal we were able to spend with a family from Kyle's mission. I am so grateful for them and the rest of the families that did so much for us. They were so hospitable and fun to be around. They took us to some amazing beaches and the Convent in Mafra. In this picture we are at the park after seeing the Convent ...which was HUGE, by the way. Portugal overall was a dirty country but when they do something there its always really pretty and has a lot of detail. I loved this park. I really loved Portugal but I was excited to be home. I don't know if I could ever live there. I was so excited for trucks, our mountains, wide streets, grass, houses, Mountain Dew, and to see my family. Its crazy to see how different other parts of the world is. It makes you grateful for the life and family that you have.

City of Romance

It took a little convincing but Kyle and I went to Paris for a day in the middle of our Portugal trip. I'm so glad that we did. We LOVED Paris! It is the most amazing city. It was sad that we didn't have a ton of time but we did well with our precious hours. We only had 24 hours and I wanted to make sure we hit the top must sees there. First on our list.... the Eiffel Tower!

Oh. My. Gosh! It was amazing! And HUGE! Its way bigger then I thought. We flew into Paris at about 7:00 but by the time we got to the city and found our hotel it was dark. We wanted to go find the Eiffel Tower and hopefully get a little bit of our survivor shopping done that night because the next day we were flying out at 7:00 and we wanted to fit in as much as possible during the day. I'm so glad we saw the Eiffel Tower at night. It was so pretty!

We didn't realize how late it was because of the 8 hour difference but at midnight the Eiffel Tower twinkles. I am so glad that we lucked out to see the show. The park was packed with people there to see it.

The next morning we woke up to rain. We didn't really think about France being so much farther north then Portugal and there was a good storm there for the past couple days so it was a little colder then normal and we weren't very prepared to say the least. All we had were flip flops and shorts and no jackets. We woke up and went to the top on the Eiffel Tower. It was an amazing view!! It is super high so the wind gave us a good chill but the view was beautiful!

Next on our list was the Notre Dame. It was still cold so we stopped in a store on the way and got me a new fun Paris sweatshirt. The minute we walked out of the store the sun came out. Just my luck but I got a cute hoodie from Paris so I guess I can't complain. Notre Dame ended up being really cool. There were hundreds of gargoyles and the whole area around the Notre Dame was all Gothic.

Last must see stop on our short lived trip to Paris was the Louvre. I had heard a little about it but I honestly couldn't believe how big everything was. The Louvre alone was HUGE. To see everything it is supposed to take you 3 days. Its 7 miles of the most famous, original art in the world. A-Mazing.

Inside the Louvre the paintings covered the walls. It was nothing like I was expecting. The paintings were huge. Some were about 20x30 feet. No wonder they are so famous.

The Mona Lisa. Honestly I don't know why it is such a big deal but it is and I got to see the real deal! It was super small compared too the rest of the paintings but more what I was expecting so I wasn't disappointed.

Other then finding the Mona Lisa my other favorite part of the Louvre was the Greek statues. They were super cool too see. The Louvre was definitely amazing to see. Next time I would just not wear flip flops. I was about in tears by the end of the day. Kyle was so nice to me and bought me some softer shoes before we flew back to Portugal. It was a life saver the rest of the trip. He is so good to me. I don't know what I did to deserve him. This trip was perfect and I was so happy to be there with him. It was really sad to leave Paris. I hope we can go back there again some day.

I promise the rest of the trip is to come...if anybody reads this anymore.

A Whole New World

It was so nice to go back to Portugal with Kyle and meet everybody and tour all the cool things that he got to see without me. It was hard at first because of the time change and everybody only spoke Portuguese but by the end it was kinda fun to just tune everything out and not worry about what is going on or what people are saying. It is EXTREMELY different over there compared to America. For starters....

Bucawhau....ew. All the stores would smell like it and it was gross.

Pastels De Nacas. Kyle's favorite treat there. He got one every chance he could.

All the scenery was different too. Did you know that cork comes from the bark of a Cork Tree?

Castles were everywhere. This is the view of Lisbon from the St. George Castle.

Standing on the outer wall of the Castle.

I loved all the Arch ways they build back in those times.

Down Town Lisbon there is a super old elevator. It was really cool to see it even though we didn't get to go to the top. In this picture you can also see all the cobblestone streets and sidewalks. All I can say is good that its good we have cement. I couldn't stop tripping the whole time we were there.

Us in the main squire in Lisbon. It was a really fun city to see. I'm glad that we had a chance to go back so quickly. Everybody treated us so amazing. We are going to be forever in debt to all the friends that took us in and made their home ours.

Yellowstone Take 2

I can't ever seem to get Yellowstone into one post without bogging everything down with a million pictures. Maybe next year will be different. If it would stop being so pretty maybe, but I don't see that happening....unless that gigantic volcano underneath it erupts but then we all might just be dead if that happens so lets hope not.

Here is the prettiness I was talking about and the handsome guy! Sorry he's taken!

One of our favorite hikes is Uncle Tom's Trail down to the Lower Falls. It is seriously breath taking...not only because it's 300+ stairs to the bottom but the view too.

Here is the Lower Falls in all its 309 foot drop glory!

The whole Fam Damly in front of the falls. I loved that we got to take them there for their first time to Yellowstone. We kept telling them they would love it. Maybe they will start coming faster now that they know we know what we are talking about!

The brink of the Upper Falls. It was really cool to lean over the side and see the water falling over the edge.

Last day in Yellowstone we went to Old Faithful.

Dad, Mom and Kaden with Old Faithful at its fullest. I'm really glad we went and can't wait to go back again. I guess we will have to see what next year has in store for us. I'm thinking Redwoods? I don't know though Yellowstone Lake would be cool to see too and I need to find a big moose and grizzly bear still. I mean Kyle needs to find them for me. ;)

Yellowstone!! Yes it was almost 2 months ago

So I know that I'm horrible and slacking but a lot has been going on here lately and to be honest even thinking of looking though 700+ pictures from Yellowstone and then 900+ more pictures from Europe gets me feeling a little overwhelmed to say the least.

Oh man, we had a lot of fun this summer but I'm defiantly not ready to start scrapbooking all these great memories. Where to start? I finally bit the bullet and looked through all the thousands of pictures. Pretty sure it took me hours and afterwards I still needed help from Kyle to narrow it down even more. Good thing he's so helpful because I think he got rid of about 15 extra scrapbook pages....I'm not counting how many I have too do yet...I want to feel like I've at least made a small accomplishment before that number gets thrown around. So to say the least these next 5ish posts may or may not be loaded with pictures. I will try to tone it down a bit but when you have so much to work with what are you supposed to do just not share them? Deciding has never been one of my strong talents.

So to start it off...YELLOWSTONE!!! One of my most favoritest places on earth. It. it. beautiful. I was really hoping to see a bear and a moose this time and....

Meet mother moose and her little baby. So cool. We were still about 20 miles out of West Yellowstone when we saw her and we had to turn around about 3 times and finally park for about 5 minutes before I saw her. Lets just say I'm blind and thank goodness Kyle was there to be my eyes. Next time I'm going to have him find me a big male moose....cause I'm obviously not going to accomplish that on my own!

Me and Popsy hanging outside the car in a traffic jam in Yellowstone. Isn't he cute. I love my Dad! I was so excited to take my family to Yellowstone. Only my Mom had been and that was about 40 years ago so it was new to all of them.

Mammoth Hot Springs. It was so amazing to see.

Jacee, Dad, Mom, Jenae, and Kaden. They almost didn't stop here cause they were too hot from all the walking at the first stop but I'm pretty sure they didn't regret it. It was really cool to see.

Over by the East entrance there was a lot of Rangers and I knew it had to be a bear. Right after we stopped this little guy ran right in front of our car. I got a little more excited then a normal 23 year old girl would but Kyle still loves me so its all good.

Petrified Tree. I have never seen one before. I thought it was pretty cool. They said that it was a Redwood???

After Mammoth Hot Springs and our bear adventure we headed down to the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone" and we found this guy. There were TONS of buffalo everywhere but we were seriously like 15 feet from him and he didn't even care. Probably not the smartest idea but we lived and got the picture so whatev.

Second 1/2 of the trip will be posted soon...hopefully....

This One is For You Whitney

We have been hoping for this change for a really long time. Meet the bathroom we once all hated...

No we are really not that dirty. The sink is actually "clean". It didn't have any enamel so no matter how hard we tried it always looked like we were pigs. Notice the two faucets so that the hot and cold water don't touch? That was my favorite part...ok not really. Are you kidding me?

I guess that Grandma and Grandpa really do love us cause after a little convincing we were able to to this...

And this... Paint helps almost as much as that sink. The white did not go too well in that old bathroom.

And we ended with this!! I love it!! I know that it isn't the most high end bathroom and our shower is still jimmy rigged but it is a million times better! PS: The super, uncool lights that were by the mirror are gone too. It was not lucky enough to make it on camera I guess.