Seattle, Washington! March 11-13, 2009

Seattle, WA! I made it! As I flew in, Mt. Rainer was stunning, the skies were blue, and the sun was shining. It stayed that way the entire three days I was there. Miracle, I know! I flew in to visit a few friends from nursing school, see the sights, and then visit Portland before I fly back home.

So this is a view of Carkeek beach and Puget Sound behind me. It was very windy, chilly, but sunny with blue skies. Even the pilot of the plane I flew in on said as we landed "enjoy the sun here in Seattle, it's rare!" Kristen Bylund and Camille Young, two friends from nursing school who have both moved up there to enjoy the water and work, picked me up from the airport and first took me to this park.

Oh it was so beautiful!

Wahoo, I'm here! Hello Seattle!

The Fremont Troll! If you can see it, there is a real volkswagon beetle underneath the troll's hand. He's palming it! Funny huh! I don't know much history on it, but Kristen and Camille had to take me to see it. It's well known in Seattle. But I did hear a story about how a little boy, when he came to see it, thought he'd be able to drive the bug right out from under the troll's hand, and then return it when he was done. Whatever the story is behind it, it's a piece of art!

So this is what it's like to hold twins!

On Saturday March 7, 2009, Chantel and Reed came with me to visit Brynley and the new twin girls, Lydia and Cosette. Chantel and Reed were down in Utah for Chantel's sister's wedding and luckily we were able to get down to Springville to visit them. They are so cute and adorable! Lydia is smaller than her sister, but both equally precious. It was fun to hold both of them at the same time, quite different than just one. Can I just say I love holding and playing with healthy babies! At work, they have too many tubes, wires, etc connected to them. I can't wait to see them again!

My very own Mater rice heat bag!

So this is my newest creation! I have to thank Chantel again for this fabric. Thank you girly! Chantel knows how much I love Mater, and so for Christmas a year ago, she got me this amazing fabric to make a rice bag. Yet it took me this long to make it! Tonight, my roommate Meagan and I went to her Grandma's house and used her sewing machine to make it. I can pretty much sew only straight lines, but it's enough to create a rice bag!

It's a cute design! I'm such a kid at heart! Mater is such a fun character! I mean look at his smile, it can make anyone crack a grin! He just makes me happy! And now my muscles are happy to have a rice bag!

Pillow hockey at my ward's FHE, what fun!

So for FHE yesterday, my ward played pillow hockey! Yes, pillow hockey! It was a lot of fun. Here our second counselor, Brother Jones, is playing goalie and is basically waiting to just block the huge ball with his pillow. It's very hard to score with such a big ball!

Here a few members from my ward are attacking the ball. It was funny when a huge mob got to the ball at the same time and tried to hit it, because the ball didn't move anywhere. :)

You can see them starting up their swing to swack the ball! I, myself, thought I tweaked my shoulder from trying to swing my pillow so hard at the ball. I even headed that huge ball to prevent a goal, I was successful, but my head pounded a little bit afterwards! Everyone was impressed with my header though, so it was worth it.

My team won in the end! Oh yeah!

Playing with cute SAM!

This post is a month old! On February 9 and 10, 2009, I was able to watch cute SAM for a few days while Brynley, a friend from nursing school, was in the hospital having her twin girls. We had a lot of fun. We went for rides in my car, he took naps, I entertained myself, and then we made macaroni and cheese and ate cheetos! He loves them. I also encouraged him to drink his milk, unlike his mom, his dad hopes he'll like it. Here I caught such a cute smile!

Ahh... I can't remember what he was doing, or what I was doing, but he's so cute!

Pull out those cheetos! Yes, he is like is dad in this way, he loves cheetos! He wasn't too fond of his orange slices.

This was my favorite moment. He was in the back of my car and he kept making cute sounds. At one point all of a sudden he kept saying "ba ba". I couldn't make it out, until I remembered my basketball is always on the floor behind the drivers seat. I was able to get it for him and he held onto it with the biggest grin on his face. Oh I love him! And now Brynley and Paul have twin girls as well. I'm an "aunt" x 3. Wahoo!

A Night of Bowling!

Ok, sorry the picture isn't clear, that's a camera phone for ya. I forgot to bring my camera with us bowling, yet this picture tells the story. So, I just want to start with...I have had better games! Seriously, it was that bad! :) So I stepped up, bowled, watched as my ball flew right into the gutter. Ah man! So for my second attempt, I stepped up again, swung my arm back again, let it go, and...ahhh, gutter again! This went on for 3 rounds! I finally got 7 points and then on the 5th frame, I got 3 points. Yes, after 5 frames of bowling, I had 10 points. Awesome! So I then busted out my Grandma bowling skills. I let it roll down the lane and boom! A strike! No joke! It was awesome, and I'm doing these mad skills all the while in the next lane is a cute, red head little girl, with a bandaid on her forehead, bowling with her dad who had about the same score as me. And all she did was drop the ball and then 5 minutes later, her pins would fall down. Yet, she did have bumpers and I was not going to have them. But please keep in mind, I have bowled better games. :) So in the end. I finally bowled the normal way again, and a SPARE, out of no where to end my best game ever! ;) Yes, the third score down is mine, 61. Atleast it wasn't 10, like it could've been. Thank goodness for the Grandma technique!

The New House, 2772 Yuma Cir

This is the cute little house on Yuma Cir. I moved in on Feb. 1, 2009 with three other amazing women. Meagan Lake, Becky Young, and Marianne Holman. Meagan was in my BYU ward and I was lucky enough to find her up in SLC. I met Becky in my SLC Univ ward, and Marianne I met through the two of them. All three of them worked as interns at the Ensign this past semester so they are all amazing writers. Marianne works for the Deseret News/Church News, Becky works as an editor for a online Univ, and Meagan got a job working with the autistic kids at Park City High School. Yet they are all applying for Grad schools so these jobs are temporary, besides Marianne, I think hers she'll keep! I love these girls! It's so nice to have roommates to talk to and do fun things with!

These are our amazing rose bushes that I know will look amazing in the spring and summer! The landlord talked them up a lot, so they better live up to his words!

This is our front room. Two strong men from my ward helped me move that large couch into the house. You should've seen it, I didn't think they'd be able to get it in. But they did and we at least have a couch (which my past landlord gave to me for free, sweet huh)!

This is my cute new comforter! I bought it at IKEA! You've got to see the room as a whole though! I think I would make a pretty good interior designer! I would love to do that on the side of nursing. I hung up my paintings and other decorations earlier this week, it feels like a taste of home!