Last Mutual Night

I had my last mutual night for perhaps a little while. We played cash cab and I was with Sis Stephanie Heaton and Sis Lindsay Bailey with some of the girls driving around answering questions about the Gospel and earning money (Dino bucks haha) to get ice cream sundaes....way fun! It was fun catching up with the leaders too and I hope we get to stay friends. I loved getting to know the girls and I believe this calling was to prepare me to be a mother and to get to know more girls/ladies/moms in the ward. They are so great and loving.  I will miss them!

Ward Campout

The weekend before school started again in fall, we went to our annual ward campout up in Mt. Charleston. The plan was to camp over with our friends in their tent trailer but it turns out that all the camp sites for trailers were filled up and we forgot the key to the trailer anyways. So we didn't get to spend the night but we had a fun time with ward people anyways! I love our ward so much and the people and all the kids are so great. We ate yummy food, had cobbler, snacks, hung out around the fire, I chatted with my photog friends, we played with the sweet baby Blaine is holding and we just had a fun time. Always so silly in pictures! haha

Girls Camp 2011

Girls Camp was such a blast! Our stake is amazing and so are our girls. I camped with Level 4 and the girls I was with were so amazing. They were like "Sister Davis, you are so cool...you are just like us!" haha everyone thought I was like 14. I swear I was the youngest leader there! The theme was Steady the Course and we talked about the storms in our lives and enduring them by leaning on the Savior and letting him take the wheel. I also got my Honor Bee! An award for doing service hours and reading the Book of Mormon in its entirety after receiving my YW Medallion. It was so great to get to know different leaders in the stake as well and I made some new great friends! I had a great time and I came home to a clean house with clean carpets....I sure loved my husband and he sure took care of things while I was gone. Love him!

Preparedness

Just a quick post to show off this amazing bread we made at my friend's house for Relief Society! Either I was way young or I have never made bread before from stratch and so I was soooo super excited about this activity. We made whole wheat bread and whole wheat waffles and had "wheat meat" in different dishes. We taste tested dry milk and learned so much about food storage. Nowadays, these skills and information about being prudent is ESSENTIAL and CRUCIAL because of the economy and all the crazy things that happen on the earth. I feel so sad for the people recently hit with a tornado. The bright light in that story is that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is always ready to lend a hand. I hope that if my neighbors and I are even in a need of emergency, I will be prepared and have more than enough to share of my emegency preparedness items.

http://newsroom.lds.org/article/midwest-hit-by-string-of-deadly-tornados

"Midwest Hit by String of Deadly Tornadoes

23 May 2011 — Salt Lake City

News Release

A string of tornadoes swept through the Midwest on Sunday. The hardest hit area was the city of Joplin, Missouri where the death toll is expected to rise. As many as one quarter of Joplin’s buildings have suffered significant damage including the Joplin stake center, which was destroyed. All missionaries in the affected areas are safe and accounted for.

Local priesthood leaders continue to assess needs and will be contacting officials in affected areas to determine opportunities to assist with response efforts. Church members have already begun to assist with cleanup. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this disaster."

© 2011 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved

President Packer

I wanted to share the true words of President Packer and back him up for the message he shared during General Conference. I was shocked to learn that there are people protesting his talk and calling it "hate speech" Whoever actually thinks that is seriously disturbed. He is a loving and caring man and his words were exagerrated and those who are not living the ways of Christ are the ones being offended. President Packer and the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will not apologize for proclaiming truth.

Renewal

So let me begin by saying how crazy life has been lately. I work full time (but get off early on Friday...yes!) and Blaine does work and school that adds up to like 60 hours+ with homework. Then I have my other duties like my calling and organizing and cleaning...ya da yada. What I realized the other day though, is that I do not have time for everything. Nope. I blog during my lunch break, I watch TV while on the elliptical, and I facebook on my phone only because I barely sit down on my computer at home. I love cooking and usually cleaning but while I cook I tend to use all four countertops and the entire place is a mess and well I eat breakfast running out the door sometimes so no I do not always put away the dishes and maple syrup away before I leave. Sometimes I do not immediately wash all our dishes after dinner because we run to Institute together and don't want to be late. I wake up at 5 to exercise and by 9 we are saying prayers.

The past couple of days I just SLOWED down and it felt sooooo good! Why? Because it meant that I got more important things done. It's the whole good, bettter, best deal where I had to choose wisely. This is what happened Friday:

I WANTED to do this ...
-gym, grocery shopping, Target trip, laundry, make dinner.

this is WHAT ACTUALLY happened...because I slowed down and did what I was SUPPOSED to and it was more important.
-paid bills, talked to my visiting teaching companion, left messages for the girls I teach, read the visiting teaching lesson (which was a take your pic on Temple issue of Ensign), figure out some accounting, prepare a notice for our ward, organize my desk, and order pizza to just chill with Blaine.

Instead of feelilng like "Ah, I didn't get this and this done" I instead felt like I finally listened to what Heavenly Father wants me to do. So with watching conference this weekend, I further got strengthned on realizing what really needs to be done versus what I want to get done. Point of the story, listen to President Uchtdorf and slow down :)

General Conference soon

Well I am excited about General Conference! I am looking forward to it because I missed the Relief Society conference and I read all the talks online. You can read it here if you missed it, you can even watch it! I just read and it was great too. But so with conference, I am so excited to spend time with my parents and my sister with Blaine and I just hanging out on the couch. Confererence weekend is just so relaxing and uplifting and really rejuviantes me. I can't wait until the weekend!

April so far....

So I think April has just flown by! I barely could remember what our family of two did! We have had a lot of fun though and I need to remember to take more pictures! I don't take credit for ANY of these. But here is our April so far!

Easter, I found ONE picture from the actual day! Here are family and friends :) I did blog about Easter and I think that's one of my highlights of April.

Blaine and I got to babysit these cutie pies! 2nd cousins :) Their cute photographer mommy took this picture and visit her on http://staciehawleyphotography.com/ she rocks! Our Friday night was filled with pizza, princesses, beads, The Little Mermaid, coloring, dancing, and once

the girlies went to sleep, One Tree Hill!

Some of our greatest friends got married! I have know Kim and Kyle for like forever and even though we weren't at the Temple, we did go to their reception and it was a beautiful night! Now we have another married couple to hang out with and it's awesome :) Congrats to the Milletts!

We recently discovered this restaurant. Don't let the "Saloon" part fool you. There is "Texas" everything on their menu so you have these great southwestern dishes and it was so yummy! Not too pricey either. Yeah they have a bar but so does Applebees and BJs ya know? Also, the interior design is to die for! If you like cowboy stuff, this is the place to go!

Blaine's cousin Matt Davis blessed his baby girl Karli Irene Davis and it was such a beautiful moment! It really tugged our hearts to see this sweetheart of a 2nd cousin be so cute with her parents. We love Matt and Jen! Congrats to the both of them. Baby Davis will have such a great cousin to play with one day!

I was sick last weekend...I think Thursday til Sunday the only thing I did was go to Church and buy groceries so I wouldn't starve although for the first few days I couldn't keep anything down. Yuck, I was most likely food poisoning! I am glad I am better because I hate being sick and I did NOTHING for an entire weekend.

While I was sick, Blaine studied endlessly for school and I am so proud of him! He's a great "REBEL" and such a hard worker both at school and at work. He's got to juggle a lot of things but he does it so well!

Our Weekend : Conference, Easter!

I was an absolute cleaning machine on Saturday morning and I didn't even go back to bed at 5:30am when Blaine left for work! I cleaned the kitchen while I watched some TV on the laptop haha but I did great! I seriously cleaned for like 3 hours straight and it was great deep cleaning. Just looked so great! It is so much easier to keep up once you start super clean. I seriously got a workout because I was sweating like crazy when Blaine came home just in time for Conference. All the talks were so great! In between sessions we took a much needed nap and it felt so great. After, we went to his parents house for conference and saw it there with family. After, the girls went to the bead store for some goodies ( I got a cute bracelet and watch made for me!) and Blaine and other kids went to Home Depot. The boys later went to the Priesthood session and Joni and I went grocery shopping at Sam's. It was good bonding time! We watched The Other Side of Heaven, one of my favorites, ate pizza and helped Joni with dinner. Then it was time to go home with my honey! Great start to conference weekend :)

Sunday was such a great day! Blaine and I had struggles making breakfast like almost burning bacon and aebleskivers and Blaine messed up a couple times making the batter haha BUT we made it and our omelets with the aebleskivers were amazing! We saw One Tree Hill a little througout the day and we were ready for General Conference part 3 & 4. We saw all of it at home and it was nice to cuddle, have fun with each other and learn a lot. Then we made it over to Easter dinner which was a buffet and there was so much good food! I love it so much wow :) Whipping cream potatoes and green beans were my favorite so I got seconds! Almost the entire Noorda clan was over there and it was Grandpa Noorda's birthday on Monday so we celebrated there. My family was there too and it was neat to share this wonderful holiday with both our families. We saw all the kiddies play, hung out with my parents and left to our home to be together. I love Easter and what it represents and spending time with family. I am so grateful for Christ and that He lives.

Elder De La Vega and Brianhead

I can't believe that I haven't written about this earlier! So my little brother is now all grown up and he's going on a mission. We had a little get together so he could open his call in front of his family and friends. So many people were there! All his leaders from Church, his best friends, his family and his beloved parents. It was such a wonderful moment and he's going to the Canada, Montreal Mission in Spanish and French! He leaves March 24th! He'll be going back to my college roots, PROVO! He already knows Spanish and so that's why Heavenly Father knows that he can handle French.

On another note, Blaine and I went snowboarding! We had such beautiful powder and I did so much better! I hope that we have good snow when we go back next week! It's so nice to have our own room at the cabin, it feels great :) I love when I get to hang out and play with my husband.

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween was pretty special! Different too :) First off, I had to work in the morning. It wasn't that bad because I was awake at like 3am anyways. I woke up and I made a few batches of chocolate chip cookies! I made some for Carson's baptism and so I got those done nice and fresh. I went to work and those were my last two hours at Gilcrease Orchard. I got home right in time to change and get ready for the baptism. The Stake Baptism for the little kids was just amazing and being with Carson on his special day was awesome. The Davis' are all done now with baptizing their 6 kids! Now they just have to wait for grandchildren haha. We went back to the house to get lunch and we chatted with family and took lots of pictures. So fun! Then Blaine and I went back home to get our yard ready to do some updating and replanting. It turned out that some of our plants had died (since no one took care of them before we bought the house) and so we had to fix things so we wouldn't get fined. Jeff and Carson came over to help and we bought pretty new flowery plants and bushes to put in our home. We are totally not done but it's going to look so pretty! Especially when the flowers bloom. SInce we were working outside for hours, we were out there planting, doing yard work, and handing out candy! Such cute kids that came to our house! I loved giving out candy :) Then after dinner we just went to bed! A long but beautiful day.

General Conference Weekend

It was so great to have Blaine come to Provo to spend General Conference weekend with me! I love that. He got to Provo on Saturday morning and I made him a great and yummy breakfast with eggs, bacon, pancakes, and strawberries with whipped cream. SO good! We watched conference in my apartment and cuddled as we listened to the wonderful talks given by general authories and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then we visited Alisha and hung out with her! We just chatted and enjoyed each other's company. Then off we were to watch conference again. For dinner, I had told Blaine about a placed called Tucano's Brazilian Grill where you can eat like a dinosaur because they bring you out amazing selections of meat and so we went there and yes it was a carnivorous feast! We topped off dinner with some cheesecake and we were stuffed until Sunday! Later we went and saw Fast & the Furious (2009) and it was way cool! I love the cars, the action was sweet and Blaine and I really liked it. We tried to get a razor for Blaine at Wal-Mart around 12:30am and there was a HUGE line! It wasn't worth it so we went home haha.

Sunday we had tickets to go see General Conference in the Conference Center on Temple Square and so we went to Salt Lake City to pick up our tickets, we drove to our parking lot and went as fast as we could 5 blocks to the center. We didn't make it really!!! The actual live Conference was all full so we went to an overflow area where we saw conference on a big screen. Ooops! Next time we know how to get there and that we need to get there at a certain time haha We also met up with one of Blaine's mission buddies and hung out for a little while. Then back to Provo we went and had french bread pizzas loaded up with cheese and pepperoni and it was soooooooo good! We saw the last session and then it was time for Blaine to go all the way back to Vegas. I don't like saying goodbye anymore! I want to go home :) But it was so amazing to have him here and we had an awesome weekend.