MOM!

SO today is my moms birthday! So I thought I would do a blog for her. I was sad to find that these were some of the only pictures of her I owned, but I guess it's not my fault she is the hardest person to photograph, usually you get a hand instead of the face, but I do love these two pictures.

This first one is from a trip just my Mom, Emily and I took in 2007, we got to visit my Aunt Fay in Utah. It was a very fun trip This day we went into SLC just the three of us. We walked around temple square and what not. It was fantastic.



This picture is with my Aunt Fay that same summer, we went up to this lake in the mountains for a picnic with some of my cousins (as you can see Spencer in the backround, so fun). Aunt Fay is my Moms oldest sister/ sibling, she is awsome, she has so much love in her for anyone she meets, and especially my mom! (And Fays kids are pretty awsome too!)



My Mom is an awsome cook, if there is one thing I am trying to learn from her, especially after getting married, it's to learn to cook as well as she does! She is super strong, and is strong willed. She also has this amazingly huge pain tolerance, I remember this one time we went camping, and there was this natural water slide that my mom had slipped on, she landed right on her wrist and it looked bad! I swear she had broke it, but she refused to go see a doctor of anything, and we kept camping and she still did everything she would have normally done, and I don't remeber her complaining about it once! Just this fall she was helping my Dad and Granparens cut up a moose and she ended up needing stitches, and when Colter and I heard about it, our first comment was " She must have cut it REALLY DEEP!" there was no other way she would have gone in, she would have just bandaged it up!

Some of my most favorite things she says is, she call us girls- The Amazon Women of the North. I love that. I remember when I got to start wear a "over the shoulder boulder holder" yup she taught me that. There are also some dutch sayings which I have no idea how to spell out.

All an' all I love my Mom ALOT! She is such a strong women, in so many ways, spiritually, physically, mentally. She is inspired, and I appriciate all of the talks we've had, and all of our laughs. I am so gratefull for an awsome Mom and I hope she has an Awsome day!

The End and Begining of Years

Alright, So Jared and I took this big trip to Utah from December 18 to 23, and I am sad to say that I have very few pictures for it. We aren't very good at rememebring to take pictures. But I am glad to say that despite the weather and Road conditions we made it there and back safely, usually just missing the worst of it!

We went down for a wedding of a mission companion that Jared had trained, we got to go to the sealing, which was very special since their mission president was the sealer. It was a beautiful wedding.



This is Jared and one of his mission companions, Brian Mealander. This was the big tree in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.



These two were takin just beside Assmbly Hall, just with diffent settings, in real life it was more like the bottom picture. Temple Square really was beautiful!



I felt very lucky to be able to go down, we were able to do a session at the Salt Lake City Temple, which was a very nice experiance, and we got to see temple square all light up for christmas! It was absolutly stunning, I'm sad I don't have more pictures. But I will add a couple on here. We got to see my Aunt Lori and Uncle Bryan. Also many of Jareds mission companions, and we got to spend some time with Larry.

Larry is a pretty awsome guy, He was one of Jared's favorite companions, and I got to meet him when he came up for our wedding last year. He was our best man at out wedding. He is so spiritual, and has an awsome sense of humor, and has some awsome stories. But we love spending time with him, especially since we live far apart, it is good times when we get to see him.

So once we got back from Utah we spent one night in our own bed then headed up to Claresholm on Christmas eve, and we stayed there until the 28th. Christmas was really good. This was my first Christmas from home, and wasn't all that bad, diffrent traditions and what not, but definantly not bad. There wasn't alot of the family there until boxing day, and then they didn't seem to leave. But it was fun, Jared's mom got a cute little puppy, which seemed to be the highlight.

After Christmas I headed up to Edmonton with Rob (Jared's brother), and Jared went back to Lethbridge to work for a few days, but he came up to Edmonton on the 31st to spend New Years with me and my family. It was so fun Robyn was home from Toronto and so the three girls and my mom went shopping, and cooked up a storm for New Years, we had lots of fun together, definantly a New Years not forgotten.

While up in Edmonton I got to go to Desiree (Woodruff) Kastendeick (sorry if the spelling is wrong, I'll work on it) sealing. Which was also spectacular! She married an awsome guy and we are very happy for them!

So that sums up the end of 08' and begining of 09' for us. I am very happy to be in my own bed now after three weeks of foriegn beds, and a lot of time spent in the car! We are back to reality and school. Which Jared starts his first official day on Thursday! We are excited for all the adventures that lie ahead of us in 2009!