Nana's Baptism

I have not only had the chance to learn about the
Human Body through PA school,
but I have also had the chance to associate
with some of the greatest people in the world.
Nana is one of these people.
From the very first day of school,
I knew that there was something different about Nana.
She is just one of these people that you really want to get to know.
She is friends with everyone and has really taken the time to get to know people.
She is always kind, she cares, and has that 5 extra
minutes in her busy day to see how you are doing.

So when Nana approached, me, Marie, and
Ada about investigating the church,
I was overjoyed.
She said that she had looked into the church a couple
of times before but had never made the commitment.

Taking the discussion with her was the coolest experience of my life.
It was the first time that I had ever done this.
It really made me reflect upon what I believe.
It made me contemplate the Saviors Atonement,
the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, and a modern day prophet.
It made me evaluate my life and I found many thing that I needed to work on.
It brought an added measure of the Spirit to my life.
I am so grateful for the Gift of the Holy Ghost
and for its power to manifest truth to us.
I am so grateful for my own testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ.

I am especially grateful for Nana's example to me.
For her faith, and for her willingness to follow the Savior.
She has so much strength.
She knows what she wants and she goes and gets it.
She is an amazing example of a mother and the joy that comes from it.
She makes me want to have kids.
I am so grateful that I am apart of Nana's life.
I am grateful for all of my classmates.

2 YEARS

I cant even believe it.....We have been married for TWO years.

I feel like it was just yesterday that we were planning the wedding.

Time seriously flies.

Its seriously been the best two years of my life.

Marriage is increadible.

I love being able to spend everyday with my best friend.

I love cooking, watching games together, cleaning, going on trips, studying, hanging out, and going on date nights together.

I love having a NUMBER ONE.

I was really excited about celebrating out Anniversary

but we didn't know if we would be able to squeeze in a celebration,

in the middle of school, work, and the LSAT.

So the days went by and we had nothing planned.

We kept thinking that our lives would calm down but it didnt.

So the weekend of our anniversary finally comes and we had nothing planned.

Well we did have something planned.

We had to help my little brother Jason do his Eagle Project.

We wanted to go out of town for the weekend but

we decided that helpin my little bro was more important.

So now its noon on Saturday and we had just gotten done helping my brother

and we still had nothing planned.

Now this was not Dustin's fault at all, I could have planned somthing but I did it.

But for some reason, I wanted to make it Dust's fault

and told him that he "hated our anniversary"

(I know I was a little dramatic)

So I gave Dust the ultimate guilt trip, and he jumped on the situation.

He got online and booked us a room at Vdara at the City Center and we were off.

We decided that a overnight get away on the strip would be a blast.

This seriously ended up being the funnest weekend EVER.

I LOVE the strip.

I know, it sounds weird, but I love the lights, the big hotels,

the architecture, restuarants, shopping, and people.

I love every oppritunity that I have to go down there and hang out.

We get to our room and we LOVED it.

It was a little mini-sweet.

We loved Vdara and we will totally stay there again.

The weekend was spent doing our three favorite things

Watching football

Eating Increadible Food

and Each other.

It was perfect.

I was also able to do something that I had never done before.

As I was walking through the Casino,

I realized that I have lived in Vegas my whole life and I had never gambled.

So I decided it was finally time to change this.

But as I looked around, I could not bring myself to hit the slots or play the games.

It just seemed like the biggest waste of money.

But then we passsed the Sports Book.

I told Dust that I had no idea how sports beating worked

so he took me over and explained everything to me.

He pulled out all the stats, papers, and bets.

I got so excited I could hardly stand it.

I was like, why did I not know about this before.

(well its probably a good thing I didnt know about this before)

So we decided to place a 10 dollar parley bet.

(yeah we are big rollers - we're poor college kids)

So we bet on Arizona, BYU, and Standford.

All three of our teams won but Stanford didnt cover the spread.

It was the funnest 5 hours of my life.

Here we are, surrounded by drunk men, sreaming our lungs out.

I have never cheered so loud in my life.

I didnt know sports could get any better, but they can.

I have never watched Arizona play before, and I was cheering my heart out for them.

It's probably a good thing we lost, our else I would have

placed all of our earnings on the NFL games the next day.

Maybe we'll have to make this a little tradition for our Anniversary.

We then ate an great restuarant overlooking the Bellagio Fountians,

went to the Sugar Factory, did a little shopping, and walked the town.

It was the perfect weekend.

Fall 2011

The last four months have seemed like a blur.

I started PA school in July

and my life has been a whirl wind ever sense.

But I have to say, I have never been happier.

I LOVE school,

I love what I am learning,

I love learning about the human body,

I love being back in Vegas,

I love hanging out with my family,

I love going to my siblings events,

I love being back in my old ward.....

I am loving life.

I am also SO lucky that I have made two new best friends.

Seriously, if it wasn't for Marie and Ada I don't know where I would be.

All three of us went to BYU, ended up being in

some of the same classes, all married, and all have a ton in common.

We hit it off.

I love going to school and seeing these two girls.

I seriously don't know what I would do without them.

(Ada already left so we didnt get a pic together)

As busy as school makes me, I still found time to have a little fun.

I mean you can't study all the time.

I made some time for my fabulous little sister's volleyball games,

helping her get ready for homecoming,

my little brothers cross country meets,

great date nights with my husband,

lots of swimming,

and just hanging out.

Who would have though that

Grad school could be this much fun?

Dust and I also decided to take a few trips during this semester.

Our first trip was to Alamo California to

visit some of our favorite people in the entire world.

I LOVE the Call family and LOVE hanging out with them.

They are seriously some of the best people in the whole world.

Dust actually stayed up there for a couple of weeks,

but I sadly could only stay for a weekend.

But it was one of the funnest weekends ever!!!!

I have always wanted to go to Stanford's Campus.

So we packed up for the day and headed out!

It was seriously the most amazing campus ever.

If I was a genius this is for sure where I would go.

I mean it has great weather, great entertainment, and a fun campus.

To bad I wasn't just a little bit smarter.

We spent the day walking around the campus,

seeing all the fun places to eat,

and the best part was it ended up being the US Open Quilifiers.

So we got to watch some great tennis!

After a great day at Stanford we went out to

eat at the best Thai restaurant around Berkley.

We had the best company and it was just so much fun to be with family.

The rest of the weekend was spent just hanging out,

visiting, eating, and enjoying the families company.

I love California but I love the people that live there even more.

After I left, Dust, his brothers, cousins, and Uncle decided to hike Half Dome.

I was a little nervous about this at first.

I mean it seemed kind of dangerous.

But there was no stopping him,

and I am so glad that I didn't.

He ended up having an a ball.

He LOVED being with his brothers,

and loved conquering this task.

All he has been talking about is how he HAS to take me

back there sometime and hike it.

Our next little adventure was Leimans Cave.

I know, you've probably never heard of it.

I hadn't either.

But its actually a National Park up around Ely Nevada.

My mom has been wanting to go there for years,

but we have all rebelled.

But she finally got her way and the whole family

loaded up the car and headed out.

I'm not going to lie, I was NOT looking forward to this trip,

but it ended up being a blast.

We ate at some of the best Ma and Pa restaurants,

had a some good laughs,

hung out with my favorite people,

and got to see the COOLEST cave of all time.

It seriously looked like we were on Mars.

I felt like I was in a movie.

It was almost so cool it didn't seem real.

We had a blast

and it is a trip I won't forget!

Next we headed back up to Utah.

We could not wait to get back up there to see our family.

That has to be the hardest thing about living in Vegas.

We don't get to see the Call's near enough.

So we spent a weekend up there relaxing, watching football, eating of course, and visiting.

The best part though, is the day before we left my husband

called me at school and was

like do you want to hike Mt. Timp with us.

I wasn't so sure about this idea.

I mean I went hiking this summer and loved it

but I wasn't sure if it was a fluke.

But I decided I would be super bored if I didn't

go with them so I toughed it out and went.

And I am SOOO glad that I did.

I LOVED it.

It was beautiful

Amazing.

Stunning.

Peaceful.

Wonderful.

Who would have thought that hiking would be so much fun.

I had a blast.

It would have been perfect if my feet weren't so cut up

and if I wouldn't have had to walk like a

pregnant women for days after because I was so sore.

Note to self....Make sure you stretch before you hike.

Then in Vegas Dust and I discovered the most amazing thing.

The Great Outdoors. lol

I was NOT outdoorsy growing up.

I had never been to Red Rock and its seriously 15 minutes away.

But Dust was itching to get out.

So we got a year pass to Red Rock and we have been loving it.

It's beautiful up there.

There are so many hikes to go and pretty things to see.

We try to make it up there as often as we can.

I also had my White Coat Ceremony.

I thought the whole process was a little weird at first seeing as were

not going to be seeing patients for another year.

But the ceremony was actually really cool.

It just reminds you why you are in school.

Why you slave away studying day in and day out.

Why you are spending all of this money on tuition

It reminds you of your end goal!

Then this past weekend we went back up to Utah again.

We can't stay away.

We had the such a great weekend.

We didn't do much.

We just got to visit with our favorite people in the world.

We are SO blessed to have such good friends.

We talked about it the whole way home.

Seriously, no one has better friends than us.

We had so much fun visiting them all, catching up, and hanging out.

I miss seeing these people everyday.

The one bad part about Vegas.

Dust and I also visited our favorite restaurant in the world.

SLAB Pizza.

We were only in Utah for three days and and we went there three times!

We can't get enough.

It's a little embarrassing how much we love it!!!

It's been a great four months.

Dust and I are loving life.

I am loving my time off to recoup and get ready

for another semester of craziness.

Gratitude

Today I woke up, and I was overwhelmed with all of my blessings.

It was the most beautiful day I have ever seen.

The sun was shining, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

It was that perfect 85 degree weather.

So I decided to go on a run.

As I was running, I couldnt stop thinking about how beautiful this earth is.

I love watching the sun rise every morning.

The sun is the coolest thing ever,

It rises every day without fail.

Its a constant in every single persons life.

Something might cover it up, but that does not mean that it isn't there.

It's the perfect example of the Savior.

The Savior and his atonement works for ever person that has lived on this earth.

Its a constant.

The Savior is always there for us without fail.

I am so grateful for the Savior in my life.

I need his help, encouragment, direction, and love every single day.

I need his warmth and light.

I love beautiful mountains, lakes, flowers, and trees.

I am so grateful that our Heavenly Father created this earth for me.

Its truly amazing.

I went up to Red Rock and went on a hike after my run.

I never took advantage of all of the beauty around my when I was younger.

But now I cant get enough.

I was also thinking about how grateful I am to be going

to school for something that I absolutely love.

I love school.

I LOVE the human body.

It is truly God's greatest creation.

As I am in class learning about our kidneys, hearts, and lungs, I am blown away.

We spend days and days learning about something that our body does automatically.

Its so cool to me that we can breathe without thinking.

Its so cool that we can eat food, digest it,

take the nutrients we need, and then discard what we dont need.

I mean how cool is that.

The more I learn about the body, the more I realize that God is real.

There is no way that this complex of a system came out of no where.

We were created by our Father in Heaven.

He has a plan for each of us, and we should use this great gift for good.

I was also contemplating on how

lucky I am to be married to my best friend.

I know that I got married young, but I wouldnt have it any other way.

I am so grateful that we get to make life choices together,

that we went to college together,

and that we get to be apart of eachothers lives for even longer.

I love Dustin with all of my heart and he is what I am most grateful for.

I am grateful to know that through the Saviors help that families can live together forever.

I cant wait to not only spend this life together but also the next.

Sharing life with your best friend is the greatest gift.

I am grateful for so many things.

I realize that because I have been given so much I need to give back.

I need to serve more, love more, and be a little kinder.

I love life. I love this world. I love my family. I love the Savior.

The Little Things

Sometimes life can be hectic.
Were running here, running there, late for this, trying to get this done.
It's really nice when we can slow down and just enjoy life.
I had one of those moments this weekend.
Dust and I had the house to ourselves and decided to have our own little BBQ.
Dust is quite the cook.
He got out some steaks, shrimps, and vegetables and started to go to work.
I helped where I could but mostly I just sat outside with him and read.
As I was sitting there, I couldn't help to think how wonderful my life is.

I am married to the greatest man in the world and my absolute best friend.
There is no one else in the world I would like to spend the rest of my life with.
I am so grateful for him.
I am grateful that he picked me to be his wife.
I am grateful for his patience, love and kindness.

I am just so grateful for the little things.
For this wonderful night that we got to spend together.
Talking.
Cooking.
Eating.
Swimming.
It felt like a little piece of heaven on earth.
I am grateful for this quite night I got to reflect upon my life.
I am so grateful to be a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
I am grateful to know my Savior Jesus Christ.
I am so grateful for his Atonement and our ability to return to our Heavenly Father.
I am grateful to know that we can live with our families forever.
I am just grateful to live on this earth and to be able to spend every day of it with Dust.

PA School

I cant even believe it.
I am in grad school.
When did I grow u?
I swear I just graduated from high school.

But here I am, a college grad, and a grad school student.
I started PA (Physician's Assistant) school two weeks ago.
It's in Las Vegas, and I am not going to lie its nice to be home.
It's nice seeing my family more and being able to spend time with them.

I am loving school.
It was defiantly a hard adjustment though.
I was not used to being in class 5 hours a day
and then studying 6 hours on top of that.
But I am loving what I am studying.
It's weird when your finally in school for what you want to do.
Having a "real" job was always so far away but now its knocking on my door.
I realized that I am not studying this material anymore to get a
good grade but to be a good clinician.
It makes me want to study harder though so I can be the best PA I can be.

The Move

I knew this day whould come at some point but I didnt realize that I would be this sad.

We made the move from Provo.

It was hard to leave the place you feel in love at.

We met, dated, courted, and spent our first year and half of marriage here.

It's where we went to college.

Its where we cheered our hearts out for the Cougars.

It's where some of my best memories are.

But there are few things that I am going to miss.

1. BYU.

As much as I have complained about parking, and the testing center,

I am really going to miss the Y.

I will miss the amazing professors, the great friends, and the constant fun of college life.

I'll miss walking up those dang stairs by the Smith Fieldhouse and being out of breath by the end of it.

I'll miss the vibe of the campus.

I'll definately miss the sports.

Nothing was better then this last year.

I will never forget the year of the Jimmer.

2. Our Honeymoon Cottage

I will really miss our little house.

It was so fun to be able to have a place of our own.

It was our little get away.

Our sancturay

Great memories.

I'll miss the broken shower, oven, outlets, and door knobs.

Ill miss the tree in front yard the dumped stuff on our cars.

I'll miss the neighborhood kids who played in our drive way.

And I''ll especially miss it because it was our first home.

3. Family

The thing that I will miss the most is definatly my family.

I have gotten to know the Calls so well these last few years and I am so sad that I wont be able to see them everyweek.

I already miss my brothers and sisters so much and I hate that I am not apart of their everyday life.

I'll miss Grace and seeing here art work. I'll miss Faith running around and entertaining us all. I'll miss hearing Tanners thoughts about books and life. I'll miss Brady's histerical comments. I'll miss just being able to talk to Carter. I'll miss seeing what great outfits Madi put together. I'll miss teasing Alex about his love life. I'll miss seeing Sue Ellen and Steve all the time, and for all the dinners and converstaions that we've had.

I realize that this may seem dramatic.

I mean I realize that I'll still see the Calls all the time,

but its just different when you dont live there.

Ill really miss our Sunday Dinners.

These are a sacred event. They are filled with the best food and the best company.

Sunday Dinners are as close as you can get to Heaven on Earth.

There is so much love in the room it is almost tangible.

I'll miss seeing all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

These people are my greatest examples and the best people on earth.

I'll really miss Mexican night because no one does Mexican like the Calls.

Provo. Its been the best four years of my life. But I guess it's time to move on.

COSTA RICA

This year my family decided to go to Costa Rica for our family trip.
I wish I could say that I wanted to go to Costa Rica,
because I read a great book about it,
but the real reason I wanted to go to Costa Rica
is because the Bachelor did a segment there.
I thought it looked amazing and could not wait to go.
So I called my mom and suggested we hit up the rain forrest.
Low and behold 8 months later we were on our way to this
absolutely beautiful country.


This is one of the funnest trips I have ever been on.
My family has not gone to Latin America a lot
but I think after this trip that will change.
The country was breathtaking.
The rain forrest, jungle, and coast lines were unbelievable.
It was so green and was a nice change from Las Vegas ha ha.

We decided to make this trip a mix of relaxing and laying out,
and a little bit of sight seeing.


I think that is the best way to vacations.
So for four of the days, we enjoyed the beautiful resort we were staying at.
It was extremely secluded and it took half an hour to get to the nearest city.
Which meant that we had the entire beach to ourselves.
I have never been in ocean water that was this warm.
It was seriously 88 degrees.
I am such a wimp when it comes to cold water so this was the first time
I could play in water for hours and not be miserable.
We had so much fun body surfing and enjoying the sun.


During these days we laid out, played in the waves, swam in the
pool, got messages on the beach, drank endless amounts of Pina Colada,
played water volleyball, read our books, and ATE all the time.




Their fruit was the best fruit I have ever had in my entire life.
It was perfectly ripe, juicy, and flavorful.
The pineapples and mangoes were out of this world.
I had fruit for every meal. I could not get enough of this stuff.
The funnest thing about our Resort was the Alcohol was free.
So people seriously drank from sun up to sun down.
Everyone always had a glass in their hands.
This made for great entertainment.
There is nothing funnier than watching a bunch of drunk people.

One night we went for a little stroll along the beach.
We found crabs everywhere.
We had so much fun chasing them around.
We also found a couple of fish that had come up on shore.
The best part though was the drunk guy kept following us.
He thought it was so cool that we brought a flash light.
So he would be the one to touch the crabs and fishes first.


The other three days were spent sight seeing.
Our first day out of the Resort was a long one.
A whooping 15 hour day.
It was SO long but so great.
We started out eating breakfast at the yummiest restaurant.

We had a traditional Costa Rican breakfast which consisted of rice and beans.
After that it was off to the Nicaraguan border.
Going through the border was in experience in itself.
You have to get out and have your passports
checked multiple times,
the car has to be checked,
the driver has to have multiple papers signed,
and then you have to bribe the police with food
and drinks to get through the whole process faster.
Luckily we were in a really nice and air conditioned van.
Because it is SO humid there.
I am not a big fan of the humidity,
and I am especially not found of all of the bugs.

After that we spent the rest of the day in Nicaragua.
This country is also beautiful .
First we went to the cute little market to of course do some shopping.
I got a shoulder bad, my mom of course got a Nativity, and my brothers got a cheese set.


After that we headed off to an active volcano.
I have never seen anything like this before.


The crater was Huge and went on forever.
There was gaseous still coming out of it that reeked.
This was one of the moments when you feel
so small compared to the earths beautiful creations.

Then we were off to lunch in the beautiful city of Granada.
This meal was one of the best meals I have ever had.
The salad was so fresh and the chicken was so flavorful.
It would have been the perfect meal if it was not
for the fact that the waiter dropped a salad down my back.


I was covered in salad dressing for the rest of the day.
I know right. It was hot.
After lunch we got to see the city in horse carriage.


This city had been taken over by the Spanish, Pirates, and William Waker.


So there was quite an array of buildings and influence there.
This was such a fun city.



Our second day out was spent on a real life Disney jungle cruise.

There is so much wild life and this was such a fun way to see it.
My favorite part was when crocodile came out of the water and caught a fish.
We also got to see monkeys, iguanas, Tucan birds, lizards, and more.
It was just so much fun being on the water and getting in touch with nature.



Our last day out was arguable my favorite day.
It was our high adventure day.
I have been looking forward to this for months.
We started off going on water slide through
the jungle that was a quarter mile long.
I thought, how bad can a water slide be.
Okay I was totally wrong.
This was the most intense water slide I have ever been on.
It was so dang fast and whipped you around like no other.
It was so intense that if you didn't have
shorts on they made you wear a diaper.
You heard me right...a diaper.
It was this big piece of leather that you had to tie around you.
Kaitlin was not happy camper when she had to put this on.
The funnest part was my mom though.
She was not quite so sure if she wanted to go
on the slide but we convinced her to.
I will never forget her face as she was taking off.
It was of pure horror.


The next part of our adventure was zip lining.
This was probably my favorite part.
Zip lining is always fun but to do it over
the rain forest was a complete blast.
The views were amazing and you felt like
George of the Jungle jumping free tree to tree.


People weren't lying when they told us this was a rain forest.
It seriously poured all day.
We were soaked all the way through.
It was a good thing we were doing such fun things
or we would have been miserable.
I just couldn't believe how wet everything got.
I guess that's why everything is so green here lol.

After changing our clothes from zip lining cuz they were wet,
we tried to warm up a little bit with some hot soup that tasted amazing.
I haven't been this cold in a long long time.
After lunch we took a tractor up to a hot springs.
All though the springs were heated by the earth,
they made man made pools around them to keep them nice.
You had to start out in the sauna room to
get all of the toxins out of your body.
Then after fifteen minutes in there we
were off to put on hot mud to cleanse the skin.


Then we hit the pools.

There were five pools that all went up by 10 degrees.
We of course stayed in the hottest pool
because we were so cold from all of the rain.
It was just so fun to be up in the mountains i
n the middle of no where lying in hot tube.


This was such a fun trip.
Although Costa Rica was amazing it wouldn't matter
where we went as long as we were together.
I had so much fun hanging out with my family and they
truly mean the world to me.
I love them so much and I am grateful
for every moment that we all have together.
Thanks Mom and Dad for taking us on this amazing trip.
It's one that we will never ever forget.