And the Countdown Begins!

One week from today (Friday, May 1st) Jake and I are leaving to go live in Boston for 4 months! And we recently decided to cash in our plane tickets and drive across the country! Crazy! The decision to change our travel plans so close to our departure date was a difficult one, but it mainly has to do with the fact that my sister Hana (the one going on a mission) wants to hit all of the church history sites before she reports to the MTC, so we are driving my mom's car out to Boston (where Hana is now) and then my mom will fly there and drive home with Hana (and possibly some other siblings) stopping at all of the church history sites on the way.

So Jake and I will be back in Utah in August, and until then, we will be living in this lovely house:

which is conveniently only 5 minutes from the beach! I'll make sure to blog about all of our adventures in Boston so you can all be jealous of our jet-setting life! :)

Words Cannot Express How SHOCKED I Am!

Well, Hana got her mission call! Let me remind you that she went to school on the east coast, did an archaeological dig in Guatemala, went backpacking through Central America, did a semester abroad at Oxford University in England, and went backpacking through Europe. This is the girl who wants to sleep on dirt floors and doesn't mind showering once a week. So of course, she really wanted to go to the most exotic mission she could. Little did we know that she really would be sent to the most unique mission there is...

Yup - she is officially going to the Salt Lake Temple Square Mission!!! She is speaking English and reports to the MTC on August 5th! She did put on her papers that she is from Orem and that her family still lives in Orem, but I guess the Lord really wants her to go to Salt Lake! Now we just have to convince my mom to keep the rules.... Good luck! She is already talking about driving up to see her once a week and taking a tour from her or bringing her lunch or even moving up there and setting up binoculars so she can keep tabs on her. And you think she's kidding! This will be interesting to see how the dynamics of having her on a mission only 40 minutes from home.... Congrats Hana!
(I don't know who they are in the picture, but it's a pretty accurate representation of how she will look!)

Fun Family!

My beautiful, amazing, and Hilarious cousin Jackie is coming tomorrow and staying for a whole week! I'm so excited for the adventures we are going to have! If you can think of anything fun for us to do, let me know!

Every Day Is A Little Bit Easier

One year ago today a dear friend of mine passed away after valiantly fighting off breast cancer. So my mom and I went up to Logan today to visit her grave. We hadn't seen her headstone since it was put in after she was buried and we thought it was so beautiful! It was an emotionally hard day for my mom and I'm so proud of how good she did! So we spent a little time with her and even though we miss her so much, we are also SO grateful for the time we had with her! We miss you Deniece!

Color Me Mine

Alex, Rob, My Mom and I had a good time at Color Me Mine a few weeks ago. It was our first time at Color Me Mine, and we certainly learned a lot! Robbie picked out a fish plate to paint and fell head-over-heals in love with this paint called The Naked Truth. I'm sure he liked it just because it had the word "naked" in it, but it was still entertaining none the less. I think he used half a bottle on his own and you can't even tell because the actual paint is practically transparent!

Alex picked out a cute mug and painted it in stripes and then blew paint bubbles inside the mug to give it a kind of texture. It didn't work out so well...

I made a cake plate because I've always wanted one. I used masking tape to make really clean lines, but the tape kept rolling and so I didn't get the exact lines I wanted, but I was still happy with the finished project nonetheless.
It may look pastel-ly, but it came out VERY orange and VERY yellow. It is perfect! It was a very fun day!

Monsters vs Aliens - B+

This is a really fun movie! Kids and adults alike will enjoy this! And I definitely suggest you see it in 3D. It was the way it was meant to be seen, and it really added to a good movie. And if you don't like 3D movies, then you are out of luck, because there are like 7 movies coming out all in 3D, so it looks like it is the next "big thing".

Obviously this movie has a bare plot and was made just to pack jokes into it, but I was obviously okay with that because I kept giggling throughout the whole movie! It is absolutely appropriate for every age and isn't too scary. The brilliant colors and constant movements will capture any child's attention, and they make sure to put enough jokes in there to amuse the parents who go too.

Pretty much I only had two complaints with the movie - the sparse plot, which I understand because it's not supposed to be a deep movie, and the fact that the funniest character "Bob" isn't as funny as he could have been because most of his jokes were played over and over on every preview. So as funny as they were, I had heard most of them before and it definitely took away from the movie. I wish they had kept more of it under wraps so that I could have honestly laughed rather than just laughed at the memory of the first time I had heard it.

This is a movie you must definitely see!