Rainy Adventure

Last weekend the family and some friends went out riding up on the rim. We packed up and made a day of it- we had such a great adventure especially when it started hailing!! We had to ride back to our base camp quick, but to no avail, by the time we got to KT's covered trailer we were all soaked to the bone and freezing!! It was a fun trip anyway... even if we had to go home early because of the weather!!

The rim is absolutely gorgeous!!!

Mikey hanging out on the cliff

KK and Brad having a little "moment" he hee

Me- duh! :)


My folks

Hanging out- Jeff and Jake

The crew getting ready to go back out for another ride

Hmm I don't know if I should be flattered or dissed that they are mocking my signature pose! ha ha

Brad enjoying the scenery

My dad- the Tree Hugger!! ha ha

Mikey and KT

Chilling in the trailer trying to keep from freezing to death

Mom attempting to get dry!

A cute couple making out in the trailer? Ha ha Brad and KK

One Week From Today!!!!!!

So I got a phone call this morning from my stake president and I have a flight booked for 10:10 AM on Monday morning the 6th of October!!! I am going back to the MTC!!!! I am so excited, but it is so soon and I have a lot to do still. I will be joining a group of missionaries who have been in the MTC since September 10th and are also going to San Antonio Texas Spanish Speaking! I will be in the MTC until the second week of November. I will write more later but for now that is the breaking news!!!!

My Parents Took Me To Disneyland!!!

I have been gone all week because my amazing parents up and took me to Disneyland!!! Yes I know, I am so spoiled and I love it!!!!!! :)

It was so fun to spend a whole week in Cali with just my mom and dad

We went to Disneyland for 3 days and two of the days we got these! Dream Fastpasses! They are pretty cool- you get a fast pass for every ride that has one. We enjoyed them, even though the two weekdays we went there were like no lines! We walked on almost every ride. But on Saturday these came in handy- it was for sure crowded!!

My friend Erin met up with us one of the days. She lives in Cali and came to Disney for a few hours to hang with me!

It was so great to see Erin. It didn't take long for us to get back to our goofy ways! I met her when she was a Kindergarten teacher at Neely and I was her assistant. She was my boss, basically but became my friend too! She is the one that made me want to become a Kindergarten teacher instead of first grade- she truly is AMAZING!

My new favorite ride at Disney is the Toy Story ride at California Adventures! It is so fun!! Here are mom and dad modeling their 3-d glasses right before getting on the ride.

I got mom to go on the tea cups with me!!

Dad and I in front of the waterfall at Grizzly River

Me and my mommy

We got dad to go on Space Mountain with us twice- he doesn't like it much! I love it, but dad thinks the music in the headrests is too loud (hence why he is covering his ears in the picture) but I always say if it's too loud- you're too old!

The fam in front of a Brother Bear statue

On our last day there I told dad that I hadn't taken enough pictures of the trip yet, so he would make me pose in front of random things and take a picture! ha ha

As I was posing in front of random things dad found that there are several of these old stoves at Disneyland! So we went on an old stove scavenger hunt! lol It was pretty funny!!!

My silly daddy with his Poncho- he loves the Rapid ride, but he won't go on it with out his emergency poncho! lol

This was me on the drive home. On the way there mom and I flew since dad had driven out there for a business trip the week before and was still there. So the return trip was a road trip- dad and mom and I squished into Dad's little Toyota Yaris with all of our stuff and drove home on Sunday. I felt like an animal cracker stuffed into the little circus box!! Those cars were not made to carry three people and a bunch of luggage on a 6 hour drive! lol

Reasons

There are 19 reasons why it will be a lot harder for me to leave on my mission this time.

My Parents

My Best Friends- Jenesse and CristinaMy GrandparentsMy Siblings: Sis-in-Law Sarah and KeithMy Friend JennieThe Jones Family

My Girls -The Skousens

I have grown so close to all of these people and my relationships with them have strengthened so much since I have been home. I don't want to leave them all! Yes, all of these 19 people were here the first time I left, but it was not the same. I love them even more now and I thrive on being around them. They bring JOY into my life and make me HAPPIER than I ever thought possible!! Leaving them will tear very deeply at my heartstrings.


Why I am going anyway:

Jesus Christ

I only need one reason to go and it is to serve the Lord and bring others unto my Savior Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings me so much happiness every day and I want to share that with the world. It will be a HARD thing to leave my family and friends, WAY harder than it was the first time, but I will go and serve the Lord and my family and friends as well as myself will be amazingly blessed because of it. My papers for my return are in and I am waiting to here from the missionary department. I could be leaving as soon as the first week in October. It seems like these past 4 and a half months have gone by so fast now that the time is actually here!! I AM GOING BACK ON MY MISSION!

"Healing Fields"

After we finished at the water park yesterday the girls asked if we could go and look at all the flags. Every year after 9/11 Tempe Beach Park has set up the "Healing Fields". It is such a neat display of patriotism and unity!!

3,000 flags, one for each person who died in 9/11- it truly is a breath taking sight to see all of those flags in one place blowing in the wind and standing as a brilliant reminder.

It was so neat to be there with the kids and see their reaction to it all. Both the older two girls right away recognized that this was a reverent situation and were very somber. Hailey liked to go around and look at the pictures on the poles and read the little blurb about the person who died. Once I told them what the stuffed animals meant at the bottom of the poles we went around the field looking for all of the ones with stuffed animals- representing the children who died in the tragedy.

The girls all got small American flags from a volunteer who was handing them out- Annie loved hers!!!

In front of the fields of American Flags stood this GIANT unity flag. It is about three stories tall and comprises all of the flags from every state. In the middle printed on the picture of the statue of Liberty is the names of everyone who died during 9/11.

The older girls loved finding the different state flags that they knew and were pretty much just in awe of the grandeur of the whole thing.



It was such a neat experience, especially with the girls and for me to have the opportunity to view it all from a child's eyes. I almost think the girls liked the healing fields better than the water park- ha who knew?

Tempe Beach Splash Park

I took the girls to the splash park yesterday and they had a blast!!! Kiley seemed to love it the most~ here she is soaking it up under the waterfall

Play'n together- Hailey and Maicy were so cute, they followed Annie around and played with her the whole time

Such a good big sister

Water Slide!!! Kiley cracked me up, she would go down this thing a thousand times and each time she always landed on her bum in the pool of water at the bottom!!

Snack time equals goofy time, oh wait goofy time is ALL the time!!!

Tattoos

First off I want to start this post off by saying- I am a DORK!! Ha ha ok so let me explain. At work the other day I was trying to keep myself entertained and I found our prize box for the kids. I was digging around through all the junk and found a bunch of dinosaur tattoos in the box. I grabbed them and decided to put them on my arm. I got a little carried away and put them all over my left arm. I made a dinosaur sleeve! ha ha Well it was pretty funny at first and the kids thought it was pretty cool. Well some of the parents were a little concerned, I think a few of them thought they were real. I mean honestly what loser would really get a sleeve of dinosaurs tattooed on their arm?!? Ha ha so anyway I got a lot of weird looks, you should of seen the darty eyed looks I got when I went to Jason's Deli that night! lol

Well the real dorky part of this story comes when I had to take the tattoos off. I really didn't want to wear dinosaur tatoos to institute the next day so I took a wet paper towel and started rubbing it up and down my arm. Well all this did was ball up the gooey tattoo stuff and rub it into my arm hairs- one word... OUCH!!! Ha ha so my mom went and pulled out the Goo Gone (amazing stuff by the way) and I poured it on my arm and scrubbed the tattoo residue off! Then I had a bright red lemony citrus arm for the rest of the night! The moral of the story is don't be a total dork and cover your arm in temporary dinosaur tattoos!!

Look Who's Two!!

My Chubba Bubba is Two today!! I can't believe she is so big already! I love her so much and I am so grateful that she is a part of my life. She melts my heart with her smile and she constantly has me laughing! She loves to repeat things I say and I have a lot of fun teaching her new phrases!! ha ha the other day mom and I got her to say "my bad" instead of uh-oh! I just love that little girl so much!!

My Annie Girl!

This girl cracks me up!! Oh how I just love to hold her in my arms and cuddle with her!

I took Annie to the splash pad at Tempe Market Place the other day and she LOVED it!!

Lov'n the water!!

She would play for a while and then she would come running at me like this and give me a big wet hug! So cute!! One time she came running back to me and looked around and asked "where Stella?" ha ha she had gone with her cousin Stella to a different Splash Pad a few days before! Such a funny girl! Oh how I love her!!!! Happy 2nd Birthday Chubba Bubba!