Life is Lovely

We went to Ethan's baptism last Saturday! He looked so cute and it was fun to see everyone. It was a perfect day and we had a picnic afterwards.

also...

I got finally got accepted into the nursing program!! When I saw the letter and that I had finally been accepted, I almost cried because it felt too good to be true! It is such a great blessing! I had applied before 3 times, and I think having all those rejections made this moment even better! I just have this great feeling that this is the right time for this to happen and that there was a reason it didn't happen before. The past couple weeks have been a flurry of getting everything ready, there is so much to do! I got two vaccinations on Tuesday and right afterwards I got a really, really stiff neck. I couldn't move my head 5 degrees to the right or left so I had pretty much no mobility, it was horrible.This has been going on for about 5 days. I was finally able to sleep laying down last night and is starting to stop hurting. The Dr's office said it was a side effect of the vaccinations.


This break has been great, we went to 3 sun's games, they lost all of them, but I still love my suns. Dad and I went to the Nets game and he got really good seats, it was amazing!

New Years Eve

Ashley was dying, to see the snow I mean really, when we pulled up to the cabin and she saw the miles and miles of snow she looked like a puppy at Christmas. ha She romped around in the snow tirelessly for hours even after her boots were soaked through. We went sledding and built a snowman, drank cocoa, went exploring, it was so fun! We topped it off by a dance party in the car, and Pei Wei. I don't think it could have been better.

































This was taken before I accidentally destroyed poor Leonard, I also think it's a pretty flattering picture of all of us too.




































We went to Snowflake for Payton's homecoming talk! We ate at our favorite ice cream parlor which sadly is closing down!



















It was so great to see grandma and grandpa and be up in Snowflake, I've had so many good times there!
























We lit off lots of fireworks with the boys this year. Our backyard was filled with smoke! They ran around crazily, I'm glad nobody caught on fire this year.









































































































I love, love, love my new long board! We went on a 4 mile ride on a trail by our house and it was so fun!



















Oh, and this week was my first week at my new job as a Physical Therapy Technician! I absolutely love it! It feels good to have a job where I am actually helping people and doing something meaningful and I love the people I work with. It is in Sun City/Surprise so there are a lot of old people who are so nice! Having this job was a major blessing and I couldn't be more happy about it. It just seems like everything is coming together right after it seemed like everything was falling apart. I love being home and just relaxing, working, and taking an online class while I wait to either get into the nursing program or transfer to BYU.

Christmas

Christmas was so fun this year because everyone was here! Melissa, Sam, Jenna, and Ashley came from Hawaii and I came home from Idaho. I got to see my new niece baby Jenna for the first time! I don't think she was even put down once the whole trip because she is so dang cute, she was such a happy baby the whole time.









































We held the traditional white elephant party, Kade received a lovely cheerleading uniform which he thought was a jersey so he loved it and Corinn got some interesting bird earrings. The big hit of the night was the giant Shrek from a thrift store which I'm sure has numerous diseases on it, but Rhett, Ethan, and Kade didn't seem to mind and its new home is in their backyard where it has become a new chew toy for socks.
































We had Christmas dinner at Brooke and Cody's and Don and Kathy came down from California too!














The weather was perfect on Christmas Day. We went to church, then came home and rode down to the park.














Rhett as a Shepard during the Christmas eve nativity play.










We went hiking at Thunderbird Mountain, made gingerbread houses, and we went to my favorite restaurant, Chili's on my birthday!

Thanksgiving

I had planned on staying in Idaho for Thanksgiving and just spending it with friends, but at about 11:30 Tuesday night Alisha and I decided to ride down with some friends! It was a long drive, but it didn't seem too bad because we drove through the night and this time there wasn't any scary ice like last year! I am so glad that I was able to come down and
spend Thanksgiving with my family, I really needed it and I had so much fun seeing all my cousins and surprising Rhett, Ethan, and Kade!











We went to their baseball games and I surprised them with their favorite drink--coke in a glass bottle. Kade just called it his caffeine and downed it in about 15 minutes.