Sorry

I know it's been a couple weeks since i've blogged, but you know what? It's been a busy couple of weeks, so I feel justified. :)
I started work as a nanny over 3 weeks ago and I can't believe it's been that long!
I don't get paid super well, but both parents are teachers, so what do you expect? I don't mind though. The kids are really fun and they let me do my laundry over there, so once Brad and I move back to University Courtyard next Tuesday, we won't have to shell out 1.50 everytime we need to do a load of laundry.

Besides nannying, Brad and I have been trying to be better in the gospel I guess you could say.
We've been working on having FHE every Monday and putting into action the things we talk about.
Our first FHE, Brad read parts of an article from the conference Ensign about temple attendance, so we decided to make an effort to go to the temple at least once a week.
Our second FHE was about the effects of video games on individuals and on families, and Brad seems to be doing better about not playing games so much.
THis past Monday we read from the Sept. issue about food storage, so we decided that everytime we grocery shop, we'll pick up a little extra for food storage.
We've also been making an effort to pray together every night.
I feel as though our lives have been a lot more blessed since we've been constantly trying to do better.
For example, Brad has two job interviews!!
Well, one of them, at Taco Bell, he had yesterday and he'll hear back on Tuesday whether he'll get the job or not. The other interview is for an on-campu job and will take place next Wednesday. Woo-hoo!
I really feel that after 9 months of unemployment, the Lord is finally blessing us with work because of the efforts we've been making.
Thank you Heavenly Father!


We went down to Utah last weekend for our niece, Riley's, 3rd birthday.
On the way down I discovered that my Aunt Kathryn was also throwing a big family pool party!
So on Saturday we went out to this Pirate themed pizza place for lunch and then went to the pool party, which was pretty awesome.
I love my family and wish I could be a little closer so that I could always attend these fun get-togethers!
On Sunday there was apparently no church because a temple was being dedicated, so we played with Riley's birthday presents and ate cupcakes and things like that.
Brad's sister Maria also drove all the way up from Albuquerque to come to the party, so not only did I get to spend time with tons of people on my side of the family, but Brad's as well.
It was a really nice weekend and i'm glad we went.

I'm sure you're tired of all my writing, so here's a few pictures. The first one is just of a picnic Brad and I went on and the rest are of me as a nanny with the kids.


I didn't want to do too many dishes when we got home, so we just ate hamburger helper and chocolate pudding out of big bowls.
Me and Kyah at the park.
She dug up an earthworm in the dirt.
And this is me holding it. Worms are so cool!
Sam and I.
Going down the slide with Kyah is pretty much Sam's favorite thing to do ever.
We built this awesome fort two days in a row and then crawled inside and watched Barbie movies.
We love to make crafts. Last Monday maybe is when we made these book holders. They're already a little ripped up and stuff, but they were super cute at first. Just some cereal boxes we cut up and covered in paper.
One day we made some country time lemonade and then I thought it would be a cute idea to use the empty bottle as a crayon holder. It was pretty late in the day and we only had about 20 minutes before Kyah's parents got home, so we made this super quickly.
Yesterday we made cardboard butterflies! There's onlt 3 in the picture, but we actually made another bigger one and then wrote each member of her familie's name on them. So the big one was Bryan, then Jessica, then Kyah, then Sam.

Yellowstone

Brad and I went with my brother Paul and his roommate Jason to Yellowstone this past Saturday!
None of us had been before, so it was quite the adventure!
We left Rexburg around noon, and it was only an hour and a half to get there, so we got to spend a good amount of time in the park.

Here's Brad and I on the drive. I didn't really think that it would be cold in Yellowstone, but it SO was! Luckily Paul had his BYUI hoodie in the back so I wore it most of the time, even though it's about 20 sizes too big for me.
It was pretty neat to see trees all fallen over all over the place! Most were from a big fire that happened a few years ago, but it was still cool.
Walking to see some little mini geysers.
This is bacteria! Gross, right?!
The Celestine pool is what this is called, I think. It was gorgeous. You could see right through the water.
I used to have this obsession with moose, and when I saw a matching pink/brown tee and cap combo with a moose on the shirt, I couldn't resist! (Sorry there's a seatbelt covering the cute moose)
This waterfall was way more pretty in person.
On our drive out of the park, we decided to stop at one of the many side trails and go on a hike in hopes of seeing some animals. Little did we know it was 3.5 miles uphill and we were all out of shape. Plus, we didn't see any animals.
Taking one of our many breaks.
There was a tiny little view of a lake, but this is the only view we had the entire hike. The rest is all just trees.
We were SUPER disappointed when we got to the top of the trail because we thought there would be something cool, or at least something to look at, but all there was was THIS! Absolutely nothing!
We passed this pond just entirely full of lily pads. It was gorgeous.
Sorry. The video of old faithful is sideways and I couldn't get it to flip up.



This is called a paint pot. All this goop just bubbles away. (Sorry it's shaky. Lot's of tourists were bugging me)


This is just some little gushing thing. It was spewing out grey stuff and looked neat.



All in all, it was super fun, although we only saw a few elk from a distance and one elk WAY up close on the side of the road, but no bison or moose or anything. :/
My brother bought an annual pass, so maybe he'll be nice enough to take us again?

This coming Saturday, maybe Lava Hot Springs? :D

Doesn't Brentwood sound like Brightwood? :)

Brad and I arrived in Rexburg on Sunday evening.
Since we had already signed the contract and payed the deposit to live at University Courtyard again, but we couldn't move in until September, we needed a place to live for the next 5 weeks.
After searching the BYUI bulletin boards, we found something that sounded pretty promising, called up the people, and here we are!
The complex is called Brentwood and it's "off the beaten path" as my brother said earlier when he was over here.
It's down past Smith Park, across from K-Mart, kind of, but down this road and behind some trees. Haha.
When we first walked in, I automatically fell in love with it!
It's not furnished, and utilities aren't included, but who cares when you have a living room, dining area, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, linen closet, two bedrooms, and lots of windows?!
Sadly, we won't be here for very long, but i'll enjoy it whole it lasts.
I took a few pictures while we were moving some things in yesterday, but everything looks smaller in the pictures than they really are, so don't be fooled, it's a pretty sizable apartment.

This is just part of the living room. Brad and I bought this little end table for cheap at Ikea and had just put it together before I took pictures. As you can see, Brad is trying to find out if we get internet here (which we didn't, until we borrowed my brother's Bridgemaxx thing today.)

There's a nice tiled area in the corner. I wish we had a dining table!
Here's the kitchen. There's more room than the one at University Courtyard, but I think there's less cupboard space...
...but, it has a garbage disposal, so that makes the less cupboard space not matter so much.
The bathroom looks TINY in this picture, but it really isn't. Trust me.
Here's our bedroom. These cute tiled mirrors were already on the wall, and I love em! I wish I could taken em with us when we leave, but they appear to be stuck there. And there is the air matrress we bought a few days ago. Pretty comfy, actually.
I'm not sure why this picture came out blurry, but this is our closet.
Here's the second bedroom. Well, here's the closet in the second bedroom anyway. The rest of it is just carpet and a window. Lol.
The hallway.

The laundry room. My absolute FAVORITE area of the whole place! Can you see how big it is? Can you? Can you?!?!
And this is the linen closet at the end of the hall.
Since it was Sunday, and it was nighttime, we didn't want to have to sort through everything in storage to find what we would need for the night, so when we got back, we realized we didn't really have anythiung to cook or eat with! We had brought back a basket of food that we had in storage, and luckily the soup cans had those tabs on them to open them, but we ended up eating the soup right out of the saucepan with two large serving spoons (and some leftover rolls we bought at Desert Book on Saturday). It was pretty messy, but kind of fun!

Well, there you have it!
We're here for the next 5 weeks, and then it's back to University Courtyard.
Not that I don't love it there too, what with all the furniture and utilities and internet and cable and whatnot, but I will miss this place.

El Canyon Grande

So, 6 weeks earlier than originally planned, Brad and I left New Mexico.
We'll be staying in Rexburg for the 7 week break from school and hopefully it will be easier to find jobs this way since a lot of the students have gone home.
Since we don't need to be up there at any specific time, we decided to take our time.
Brad asked me if I wanted to stop anywhere so the first place I said was "The Grand Canyon!"
Neither of us have ever been, and while it wasn't exactly "on the way," what better time is there than the present?
We found a cheap little motel in Flagstaff to stay the night before our adventure.
Flagstaff is about an hour and a half away from the Canyon, so it was far enough away to avoid the crazy tourist prices, but close enough that we didn't have a long way to drive in the morning.

This is the outside of the motel. Saga Budget Host Inn. Haha.
Our dingy little room. It was a tad smelly and the towels had questionable stains on them, but the sheets were clean, "13 Going on 30" was on TV, and we had Del Taco, so I was happy.
After our drive, we paid for entrance to the park (and I bought a T-shirt) and then drove into the park.

This is our first view of the Canyon.
There were all these ledges that you had to climb down to, so I went and sat on the very edge, hung my legs over the side, and took this picture of my foot in midair above this vast, deep canyon. Needless to say, Brad didn't climb down to the ledge with me. He stayed up behind the guard rails and was worried to death about me the whole time.
Just a picture of Brad looking out.
This is me sitting on one of the ledges. If I had fallen over, I would have died. It was so sweet. I love adrenalin.
Brad's such a cutie.
On another ledge. I zoomed in and took a picture of Brad. This is right before we got in a mini-fight because I was scaring Brad by being so close to the edges, and I wanted him to be more adventurous.
It was a little cloudy when we were there, so I had to touch the pictures up a bit, but the colors were so beautiful.
I turned on the self-timer and set my camera on a trash can to take this picture. Haha. And if you look close enough, I totally look pregnant in this picture! (In reality, it's just my chunkiness)
Click on this picture! I took a bunch of photos next to each other and then made a panorama on my computer. It's pretty sweet.
This wasn't even at the Grand Canyon. This was on our drive up To Utah. Lake Powell. I just thought the blue was SO gorgeous in contrast to the rest of the area.

Anyway, it was pretty awesome.
Now we're staying at Jenna and Travis' for a few days before heading up to our furniture-less apartment for the next few weeks!
I'm lovin' our life. :)

Second Week in Cali

(Sorry there are no pictures for this post)

Our second week in California wasn't near as exciting.
We had only planned on staying a week, so the extra seven days weren't really planned out.
My youngest sister, along with both my parents, headed up to Girl's Camp for the week, so Brad and I were "housesitting" for the week.

Sunday night, Nicole, Jeni and I had a sleepover!
Nicole's parents were out of town, so we watched a chick flick, ate popcorn, looked at pictures of our significant other's ex's.
In the morning, we went out to breakfast and then Jeni and Nicole were off to work.
Monday is when everyone left for camp.
Marci cleans a veterinary clinic every night, so I took over her job while she was gone.
Yay for a hundred dollars!
Most of the week, we didn't really do anything at all.
I went with Jeni to my home ward's relief society enrichment, where my aunt from Yucaipa was giving a lesson on emergency preparation and I ate 4 delicious cupcakes.
I don't remember which day it was, but Brad and I went to Best Buy to look at some laptops.
The last few months, Brad's been having small little problems with his laptop, and I guess the desert heat was the last straw for his lappy, because the screen stopped working.
So, we went to look at laptops, and ended up just buying a new one right then and there.
Brad seems to love it, so i'm happy for him.
Thursday, I woke up early to drive out to Coachella.
My sister Katrina hired me to clean the first floor of her house, so there was another 150!
I promised I wouldn't post any pictures of her house, but I'll just say it wasn't the most fun cleaning job.
Not too revealing, Katrina?
Anyway, Saturday is when they returned from girls camp.
We helped bring some things in from the motor home, and then just hung out while everyone rested for a bit.
Marci was going to a youth dance saturday night where my dad was going to be a chaperone, so she headed over to her bf Mario's house to let him know.
She left his house so he could get ready for the dance, and on the way home, she crashed the scooter!
Well, she didn't really crash it.
More like, she fell off and rolled a few times.
She called me and I took Brad and drove quickly to where she fell off.
I drove her home while Brad drove the scooter back.
My parents fixed her all up and she seemed to be ok in a few hours.
Luckily, her helmet pretty much saved her.
We had planned on going to church on Sunday, but somehow we both managed to sleep until 12:30, when everyone else got back form church!
Brad and I went over to Jeni's later in the day to play some board games and then ended up bringing Jeni back to my parent's house to play some more, since Brad wanted to go home and eat something.
We left early on Monday morning and got back to NM Monday night.

It's funny how I go through this cycle when I visit home.
Before we go to CA, I am SUPER excited.
Then when I get there, I'm so happy to be home for like, a day.
Then I regret ever coming down for the next couple days.
Then I start to get comfortable and never want to leave.
Then about a day or two before we leave, I can't wait to get out of there.
Then the day we leave, i'm super sad to be going.
After the whole trip, I get excited for the next time we'll be going down.

Right now, I just would love to be back there.
Family, friends, the heat, the pool, the people...
Man, I could live in Southern California for the rest of my life.

First week in Cali

Brad and I arrived in California on Monday, June 29th.
If I remember correctly, we didn't do anything Monday night except sit around and relax after the 10 hour drive.
Tuesday, I was able to hang out with my good friend Nikki!
We went to the dollar theater in Cathedral City and saw Monsters vs. Aliens.
Afterwards, we made some stops at Auto stores since Nikki is looking for a cute steering wheel cover, but no luck.
It was no nice to catch up, because I rarely get to see her.
Wednesday, I worked on some scrapbooking that i've been putting off for months.
Our wedding album.
However, as of right now, I still only have 3 pages done.
Oh well.
Wednesday night, my oldest sister came down with her husband and MY NIECES!
I LOVE seeing my nieces, especially when Zara is able to come over too!
Three adorable little girls running around. :)
Thursday, A bunch of us went to the San Diego Zoo!
The "party" included myself and Brad, Laura, her husband Ben, their kids Jordyn and Avery, Marci and her bf Mario, and my sister Katrina.







That night, there was a JeNiKim reunion!
Jeni, Nicole and Kim, that is.
We made our usual trip to Walmart with a stop at Dennys after.
I didn't get home until 4 in the morning!
Man, I love my best friends!
Friday, while Brad, Ben, and Buddy went out paintballing, my parents and I were able to attend a Temple Sealing!
One of my oldest friends, Elizabeth, got married in the San Diego temple.
It was beautiful, and I started bawling, and it was just a wonderful day.



On the drive home, we stopped at Old Town Rootbeer Co. in Old Town Temecula to pick up some root beer for Brad that he hadn't had since his mission.
My dad ended buying tons of stuff!
He's a bit of a beverage buff it seems.
Saturday was CRAZY!
Elizabeth's reception was in the afternoon, so I slept in and went to reception at noon.
There was TONS of good food and I gorgeous wedding video her uncle had made.
Overall, it was really nice, though I didn't get many pictures because the lighting wasn't super good for pictures.
Immediately afterwards, my mom and I headed to the grocery store because I needed to buy some things for my BBQ later that evening.
Unfortunately, we were at the store to long and I was pretty rushed to get things done.
In the end, I didn't get really anything done that I wanted to, and I was in a bad mood for most of the night, but once our family and close friends showed up, my mood lightened.
We had TONS of glowsticks, which was pretty awesome, TONS of fireworks, and TONS of good times. :)








The whole week was so fun and I forget how much I miss my family sometimes.
It's crazy to think that next time we're all together like that, there'll be a new little girl among us!

It Never Rains in Southern California

I know... I haven't updated since i've been here in Cali.
I just feel like i've been so busy!
I did write an UBER long update on Sunday about the previous week, and then when I tried to upload pictures, the whole thing froze up and I lost everything.
So basically, I was very aggravated and have put off updating.
I'm still not fully updating, however.
Sorry!
I promise I will in a few days.
We'll be going back to New Mexico on Monday and I'll update on Tuesday, yeah?
It'll be a nice chunky one, so be prepared!

Just a little quickie:
We've been here for almost two weeks.
I LOVE it and miss this valley so much, especially the summer nights.
I earned 250 dollars while being here.
And we spent 1200 on a new laptop for Brad.
Marci got into a scooter accident today, but she'll be fine.
San Diego Zoo.
San Diego Temple.
Elizabeth's wedding.
Elizabeth's reception.
Church with Jeni and Elizabeth.
Cleaning the vet clinic.
Girls camp.
Cleaning my sister's house.

There is much to tell.
:)