HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLOR!!

We went to my parents house last weekend to celebrate my sweet little brothers birthday. He is honestly such a good kid. There is nine years between the two of us with no siblings in between. My parents always knew there was another little boy to come after me. Little did they know, he would come nine years later. There is such a close connection between the two of us. It's also so cute how much he looks up to Nate. What a joy he is...

The t.v. is not part of his presents. We're still moving things into my parents house.

Easy bro on the ugly faces!

Wedding in Nebraska

This past week my family went to Omaha for my cousins wedding reception. It was fun spending time with our extended family. We also got to stay a couple nights with Nate's brother Jason, his wife Amanda, and our cute little nephew Jaden. Other than the tornado warnings, and our luggage getting lost on the way back, it was a great trip.

My aunts flower boutique. They made the flowers for the wedding.

Reception



Last two on the dance floor

Butterfly exhibit at Omaha Zoo

Our Nephew Jaden

I take pictures of Nate when I'm bored

I am fully aware that our last three posts have been about random wildlife adventures. I promise we are not granola people who live in the mountains. Or are we??
Friday night we went camping with our friends Brent, his girlfriend Jen, my brother and his girlfriend. As you can tell by the picture below, Nate obviously thinks he's an animal who bounces off tree's. Three words...out of control!

Life's Lessons

So I recently learned a valuable lesson...never let Nate choose our FHE activity. Don't get me wrong; he's great when it comes to planning dates or weekend get-aways but I now know FHE activities aren't his strong suit. I was assuming we'd go out to dinner, take a walk, or at least get dessert or something. I couldn't have been more wrong! He drove me all the way up Hobble Creek canyon before he finally told me what our activity was....

FISHING! Can you believe that? Boys will be boys I guess. Now I won't feel bad when I rent "27 Dresses" for next week's FHE activity. In all honestly I had a lot of fun just being with him. The weather was perfect and the canyon was beautiful. And the best part was he didn't even get mad at me when I snapped off his most expensive lure into the water on my first, and consequently last cast.

Colorado Camping

This past weekend we went camping in Colorado for a couple days with my family. The best part about it was the fatty foods. I won't lie, I ate more hot dogs than Nate did.
Nate cracks me up. I had to put this picture on here because of his boots with shorts. Not to mention what appears to be church socks. Ya gotta love him!

Month of May...

The month of May will always have a significant meaning to me. Two years ago this month, I had the opportunity to go to a country in Africa, Madagascar. I am not too quick to make comments like this, but I can honestly say it changed my life. After two months of trying to convince my parents to send their only daughter to a third world country, they paid for me to go. I went for one month with seven people from BYU where we worked in an orphanage and built a kitchen for it. There isn't a day that goes by where I don't think of those kids in Africa. I will always remember the month of May for this. If Nate and my work and school schedules allow us to, we hope to go to the Dominican Republic in November with a group of dentists and doctors. Here's some pictures from the trip.


Homeless...It is extremely common to see a brother the age of this kid, take care of their little brother without parents.

We taught them how to wash their hands and brush their teeth.

They wore the same clothes every day. Their clothes were donated from people around the world.

At the end of our trip, these were actually the nicest beds we slept in the whole time we were there.

Dance Concert 2008

This past weekend was a busy weekend. As some of you may know, I started dancing when I was three and have danced ever since. Since High School I have wanted to continue dancing and was glad when my good friend Emily introduced me to a studio in Orem. I have loved dancing at this particular studio and have loved the friendships I have made there. This past weekend was the yearly concert where we had two shows on friday night, and three on Saturday. My class performed five dances in each show. Although we were exhausted by the end of the last show, we had a blast. Here are some pictures of the concerts...




Me and my good buddy Elvis



Emily and I


My family after the last show

Our week in V town

This past week Nate and I have been at my parents home helping them with their house. It has been quite the process but has been fun spending time with family and friends. I have had fun helping my mom pick out decorations and furniture for the house. I never realized how much I like to tell people what they should buy. It's much easier when it's someone else's money. : ) Here are some pictures of what we've accomplished so far. I didn't take many pics so these are the only ones I had to work with. I'll post more later when it's finished. Hope everyone is doing well and for some, enjoying life after finals!


Only a sister could think this rotten kid was cute!




First rooms we cleaned and started putting together

Last night we set up our good friends Robbie and Whitney. We went out to eat and then to Comedy Sports. Robbie is a typical Ute fan (we try not to hold that against him) and hates coming to Provo. So when he pulls into Provo and is about to pick Whitney up, a cop pulls him over for not fully stopping at a stop sign and gives him a ticket. We have officially decided we are bad luck when it comes to run-ins with the law. Not only that, Robbie now hates Cougar town even more!

Salt Lake 5k

Yesterday we ran another 5k with my little brother and our friend Emily. I was very proud of Nate who ran it in under 22 minutes. For our next race, we want to run a 10K so if anyone knows of any, please let us know!

The day my husband got arrested...

So last week I left Nate and Tyler Howells at home playing the WII while I went to the grocery store. While driving home, I called Nate a couple times to help me bring in the groceries but he did not answer. When I got home, the lights were all turned off and no one was home. For the next couple hours, I called Nate and Tyler trying to figure out where they were. I ended up calling my brother-in-law and all he said was "we are in Heber hanging out, i'll have Nate call you," and then hung up. Thirty minutes later, Nate called me telling me he got arrested. I immediately started laughing because since we've been married, this is about the only thing I can think of that fits in the "irresponsible category." To be honest, it actually makes me feel better about myself.

In 2005, Nate went ice fishing and got a ticket for fishing with two poles but only had a one pole fishing permit. To make a long story short, he forgot to pay the ticket and last week proved they hadn't forgotten about it. Two policemen showed up at our door, put Nate in handcuffs and transported him all the way to the Heber jail. While there, they booked him into jail and took mug shots (all with the handcuffs still on.) My brother-in-law and Tyler had to drive to Heber and bail him out which cost $250. I now know why my bro-in-law was so shady on the phone. Moral of the story... before getting married, do a background check on your future husband, you never know what's in their past! I am now officially married to a convict!