Hello Canada!

Troy and I were lucky enough to be able to head to Kelowna, British Columbia to visit my family at the beginning of July. My parents moved there last year and I hadn't really had a chance to spend much time there since then. Both my sisters and their families headed out there as well and my brother Uriah and his family live about 40 minutes from my parents. It was a happy little reunion except we were missing Gabe and his family and Noah. Maybe we'll get us all there next year.

We made it to Kelowna and I fell inlove. It is so beautiful there and I love where my parents live. They have a beautiful view that overlooks a vineyard and the okanagan lake. It was so much fun being with my family and it felt so good to be back in Canada.

This is the view from my parents place at night
(Please note that many of these photos are from my brother in law Paul - the photographer)

We did a lot of hanging out the first day because it was raining, but it was fun to catch up. We did manage to get out of the house for a quick trip to my parent's neighbors place to pick some cherries. They had loads of cherry trees and were happy to let us take some off their hands. They mentioned that it was a good idea to pick them before they got too ripe because they hadn't sprayed them for worms. We were sure to only pick the ones that didn't have any holes in them and went crazy eating away as we picked tons of them. We thought we were in heaven... that was until someone happened to notice a worm in their cherry that didn't have any holes in it. We all began to get a little nervous and started to break open some of the cherries we'd carefully picked. To our surprise, and COMPLETE DISGUST, 7 out of 10 of the cherries seemed to have little white worms squirming inside of them. I thought I was going to vomit. We had all eaten SO MANY! For those of you who know my mom and her frugal do not waste attitude you'd get a kick out of the fact that my mom tried to convince us that they were fine. HAHA I DON'T THINK SO MOM!! It was traumatizing, but we still managed to have a good time. I was trying to scare my neices and nephews into beleive that the worms can survive in your stomach for a week and can multiply. Haha they beleived me for a few minutes and were mortified! It will be a sad day when I can no longer trick those kids!

See how deceivingly delicious they looked?!

Haha this is my brother Uriah having the time of his life



Saylor and her cherry stained fingers

Denham and Lawson, these little punks were pelting us with cherries from up in the trees

Just after the discovery of the worms. I'm checking out my cherry and my sister Charity is doing the same thing behind me.

If you look closely you can see the little white worm on the left side of the cherry. YUCK, they were squirming all over!

Although I think most of us felt a little queezy we still managed to have a good attitude. Here's the group that went - all smiles.

The next day we headed to Vernon to hang out on the beach and went out on the boat. We did a little tubing and Troy even pulled out the water skis.

Troy picked this life jacket out all by himself!

That night we went to my brother's house for little Willow's baby blessing. I was really happy we were able to be there for that. Troy and I spent the night at Uriah's place and stayed up playing games with him and Christin. It was a lot of fun spending some time with them since we hadn't seen them in nearly a year.

Here's Christin and Willow

My sister Ariana and I.
Can you tell that she's 8 months pregnant here? I didn't think so.

One of the highlights was spending time with my adorable neice Ridley. She is too cute and too funny! Looks like the lazy eye gene has passed on! Haha I love this picture!

Another lovely highlight was when we woke up in the morning and noticed there were little white things on the counter surrounding the bag of cherries Christin and Uriah had picked the other day. Guess what they were? That's right, the worms had made it out of the cherries and through the plastic bag onto the counter. We were SO grossed out! I'm sure if my mom were there she would have said something like, "well there you have it, they've all crawled out so now you can eat them!" (She's going to kill me if she reads this... I love you mom!)

The next day we headed downtown in Kelowna for a nice walk along the boardwalk. It was really pretty down there.

My mom and my nieces

Thursday the 9th was my Troy-boy's 25th birthday! That's right, he's a quarter of a century! I made him a delicious breakfast and then we all sang happy birthday to him with 3 different songs. It was hilarious watching him squirm, he gets uncomfortable with all the attention! Haha! We all spoiled him with gifts and lots of candy and I think he was pretty happy with his goods! Later on we headed to the beach by my parent's place and spent the day laying out in the sun and having fun on the boat.

My Dad the captain

My sister Charity has a unique ability of manipulating anyone to do whatever she wants them to and by some miracle convinced my mom to join us tubing! Let me just say a few things to explain what a big deal this is! I can probably count on one hand how many times I've seen my mom in the water, it's a general rule that she won't get in unless it's about 80 degrees! The next thing is that my mom had never been tubing before and was absolutely terrified. We all got in the tube and my dad took off with my evil brother Uriah as his guide, there were a few very scary moments where we were going way too fast and even got some air. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

My mom screaming "NO!!"

A nice butt shot of Chairty

Now it's the boy's turn

I really like Troy's face in this one

After a fun day of being in the sun and some serious whiplash, we left the kids behind and went to dinner at cool German restaurant in peachland. They were having a Schnitzel buffet that night, Troy was all about it, but I opted for a delicious sandwhich instead. What a fun day!

Me and the birthday boy!

Dan and Charity

Paul and Ariana

Friday was another fun filled day. We headed out to Vernon again for a good time at a waterslide park. I figured it was going to be fun, but I didn't realize how much fun it was going to be! We had a blast! There was one slide in particular where everyone sits on on tube and goes down the slide together. There are a bunch of drops and then you are caught in a pool at the end of each one. As you come down you crash into the other people in each little pool. It was HILARIOUS! I came down right on top of Troy on one of them and my sister Ariana came down right after me and I got hurled out of my tube and had a heck of time trying to get back on while avoiding other crashes. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday was our last day and we headed to the beach again, this time we decided to go check out the high docks that were out in the water and once again Charity managed to convince me to jump in with her. It was kind of scary and freezing cold, but I'm happy I did it. We never made it to the super high ones, but we watched the boys and my fearless neices and nephews do it. I was impressed! We got home later that afternoon and packed up our stuff to get ready for the long ride home. We had decided to follow behind Dan and Charity and drive back through the night. I was REALLY sad to go and didn't want to say goodbye. I think it was a mixture of PMS and the fact that it was SO nice to be back in Canada and to be with my family and feel that sense of home that I had REALLY missed.

Here's all my nieces and nephews minus Kayla, Mercedes and Willow. They're awesome

The whole group

After a tear filled goodbye we were on our way. I was impressed with how long I lasted driving, I couldn't have made it without the red bull I drank and the sunflower seeds. My tongue was raw by the end of it!

It was such a great week and I was so grateful to be able to go. Thanks for all the fun family! I can't wait until next year!!!

4th of July Celebrations and Saylor's Baptism

Because the 4th fell on a Saturday this year, we had the 3rd off from work. It was a beautiful long weekend and one that I was really looking forward to. I spent Friday doing birthday present shopping for Troy and then headed over to my sister-in-law Cassie's place to get my hair done. I lvoe getting my hair done!! That night we headed out to a golf course in Bountiful that does a huge fireworks show the night before the 4th every year. We met up with Troy's family there. It was a lot of fun, we had loads of food and just ate and hung out until the show started. I knew I wasn't going to get through the night without being made fun of for being Canadian, and of course the moment I walk up Troy's brother asks me what I'm doing there because I'm not American, real funny Nick! Even with the harassment I had a really fun night and the fireworks were awesome. Here are some photos from the night.

Troy and his dad Il-Craigo

Troy couldn't resist taking this photo of me, I had managed to sit directly in front of the American Flag and he thought this was a beautiful site. Haha. God Bless America.

The kids getting their glow sticks from Whitney

Jess and Nick with Sawyer and Hal

Claire Bear

Dominica and Ron

Troy and I had rode the scooter to the golf course and were sure happy we did as we wizzed past the long line of cars and people heading home. That place was crazy!

The next morning we headed out to Riverton to attend my niece Saylor's baptism. It was the first time that I've attended a stake baptism. I think there were 5 kids getting baptised that day and they actually have the system down pat. It was pretty interesting. Anyways, I was very proud of Saylor and she looked absolutely gorgeous. She's a really good girl and we love her very much.

After the baptism we headed over to my sister's place for a delicious lunch and party. Troy and I then headed over to his parents place for a fun 4th of July pool party and more delicious food! I ate WAY too much that day.

Troy and I spent the night getting ready for our big trip to Canada we were going on the next day. We didn't have time to go see the fireworks by our house, but we could sure hear them! It was a good weekend! I hope all my American friends and family had a great 4th of July, this country sure knows how to celebrate!!

Canada Day

Alright so this is a little late, but I just wanted to pay tribute to my wonderful native land of Canada. For those of you who don't know, July 1st was Canada Day. Canada Day celebrates the anniversary of the British North America Act that took place on 1 July 1867 which united Canada as a single country. Although I wasn't able to be in Canada to celebrate, I was sure to remind all the Americans around me that it was my country's national holiday and showed my pride. Troy and I commemorated the day by singing the national anthem and going and getting a snow cone. Oh baby was it good!

(Meow!)

Although I seem to get made fun of relentlessly around these parts, I am very proud to be Canadian and to have been raised in such a beautiful country. No matter what happens, I will always consider myself to be Canadian.

Happy Birthday Canada!

Our House In The Making

Troy has been hard at work the past couple of weeks and our house is coming along smoothly! It's been really crazy how fast things are moving!

We had planned on having a ground breaking ceremony, but we just ran out of time so Troy and I decided to just do one with the two of us one Monday night. We packed up a shovel and a bottle of Martinelli with some champagne glasses. I was actually happy that we were doing it alone and was looking forward to it all day. I was pretty dissapointed when we got there and saw that the hole for our house had already been dug out. Troy managed to forget to tell me that small detail.... needless to say I was a little bit irritated. I finally decided to just get out and shovel up some dirt anyways, even though the whole purpose of a "Ground Breaking" had been ruined. Troy had worn shorts and was getting attacked by misquitos so we had to go in the car and drink our Martinelli's. We sipped our drinks while listening to classical music on the radio and looked out on to what would soon be our home! It was quite the moment, not what I had expected but good just the same.

The celebration

Here are some pictures of the progress so far. They will begin framing this week. Thanks for all the hard work you've been doing Troy Boy! My husband is a Wizard.

Just after the cement was poured

On to the framing

The first floor is now completely framed and they are currently working on the second floor. It should be done by the end of this week! WOOOO BABY!!

School!!

If I were a young arab boy, this is what I would look like right about now. I've been pretty busy the last couple weeks because I started my semester at Weber State. IT'S BEEN CRAZY! I'm doing the summer semester to be able to graduate sooner. I have school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I go to work the rest of the week. They're trying out a new summer program where they have split the semester into two 7 WEEK blocks. Yes, 7 weeks! I'm taking 3 classes the first block and on online class the second block. 7 weeks is not a lot of time to make it through an ENTIRE course and the teachers wasted no time in dishing out the homework. After only 2 weeks of classes I had my first exam in all 3 classes. YIKES! Talk about intense! I am now on to my 2nd round of exams and I feel like I barely finished the last ones! It's been tough to keep up, but I did pretty dang good on my first exams so that made me pretty happy and made all this craziness worth it.

My first day of school at Weber was a tough one for me, I began to really questioned why it was that I felt that this is the school I'm suppose to be going to and I was really homesick for BYU-Idaho. I got lost a couple of times, my books were beyond expensive and I didn't know a soul. Weber is so completely different and it will take some getting used to. Going to school in Utah is a pretty unique experience because everyone knows about the church here, member or not, and it comes up in the class discussions often, not always in the best of ways. On my first day there were already people bashing the church in my classes and that really would not happen anywhere else on a regular basis. It's pretty interesting. A couple guys shared stories where they were able to persuade some members to change their beliefs... please.

Well after class I had had enough, I broke down, shed some tears and cursed Troy for taking me away from BYU-I! Hehe! Once I realized I was being a bit dramatic I decided I just needed to look at this as a new adventure and make the most of it. Since then things have gotten a lot better and I'm starting to actually enjoy my classes, but just for the record my heart will always belong to BYU-I! I can't wait to brainwash my children into going to school there, just so I can have an excuse to go back! I'll be back Rexburg, oh yes, I'll be back!

Well anyways, just a couple more weeks and I'll be through this first block, hallelujia! I hope I can last and that Weber doesn't confuse and corrupt me too much.

Please offer 5 hail Mary's on my behalf.

Thank you.

Our Trip To Europe

Well our trip to Europe has come and gone and it feels like it was forever ago! We left on April 22nd and came back on May 3rd and visited 3 countries during that time. It was a whirlwind of a trip, we were constantly on the go, but we loved every minute of it.

Here we go! It's gonna be a long one!


Our flights there:

We had some pretty eventful flights to kick start our trip. Our first flight was from Salt Lake to Newark, I think it was about four hours. As we were finding our seats on the plane we walked past this guy who was spitting off all these random facts and was showing off his oscar that was very worn, anyone seen the movie Rainman with Dustin Hauffman? Well this was the real life rainman the movie was based on! That was pretty cool! Next up was our 9 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany. As we were waiting to board our flight we realized we had a very diverse group of passengers on our plane. There was a big group of orthodox jews, a big group of germans all with matching cowboy hats (returning home from Texas) and a large amount of heavy metal junkies. Apparently there was a Heavy Metal Festival going on in Germany so we were on the flight with about 5 different bands going to the same festival. These guys were all old balding guys with nasty strangly long hair, and fading tattoos all still holding on to the dream. Long story short, it was pretty much the flight from hell. I was tired and they were drunk, loud and foul. Towards the end of the flight I couldn't take it anymore and basically told one of them to shut up. DON'T MESS WITH ME WHEN I'M TIRED MAN!!!

This is me passing out in the Frankfurt Airport... soooo tired!

So we finally made it to Frankfurt and my bag happened to be one of the last ones to come out and we ended up missing our shuttle to Heidelburg. The worst part about it was the fact that Troy had told me a million times not to check my bag because "Something is going to go wrong". I had perfect faith in the baggage system and told him he was crazy if he thought I was going to bring a carry on bag for our 12 day trip to Europe! Well of course, it turns out that MY CHECKED BAG was the reason we missed our shuttle. Man I hate it when he's right. To top it all off the shuttles only come once every hour and when we went to take the next one it was FULL! We ended up waiting for TWO HOURS at the airport for a stinkin shuttle because of MY CHECKED BAG. I REALLY hate it when he's right.

Germany:

We finally made it to Heidelberg and it is was more beautiful than I remembered. We had an awesome time touring around with my family over there. My cousin took us around the first day and then we met up with his daughter Lara and we toured the castle and then had a delicious german meal at her mom's. It was a great time.

The second day my Uncle and Aunt took us around to all the surrounding towns and little castles and we had a great time. We were sure to stop by the super market and load up on delicious chocolate and candy. I just love Germany so much, I think it's one of my favorite places. It's SOOO beautiful, everything there is just so well kept and clean and it has such an enchanting charm, I just love it! It could just be the German in me coming through bringing me back to my roots. I have to say that the whole time I was there I missed my Mom a lot. It just didn't seem right to be there without her and I know she was probably pretty jealous that we were hanging out with her family. Speaking of her family I just have to say how incredibly sweet they were to us. They did everything they could to make sure we had a good time and were taken care of. My uncle also told me a lot about my ancestors and that was really neat to hear. I was pretty sad to say goodbye to them and hope to see them again soon!

With my sweet aunt and uncle

Paris:

We took an awesome train ride from Germany to Paris, the scenery was incredible! Once we got to Paris Troy and I had a fun time trying to figure out how to get to our hotel from the Train Station. Without the travel book my sister Charity gave me for my birthday we would have been completely hopeless, it was a life saver! Our hotel was perfect and it was right in the middle of the city by the Opera House. It was called Hotel Choiseul Opera and we would would reccommend it to everyone!

Our first destination was the Eiffel Tower, the thing I was most eager to see in Paris. It was awesome! We climbed 700 stairs to the second level and it was an amazing view! They had all kinds of fun facts to read and cool displays up there, we had a lot of fun! This thing is HUGE, in fact Troy and I lost each other for about a half hour and we were both a little worried, well I was worried, Troy was just mad! Haha oopsies!

The next day we went to the Louvre, this place was UNREAL! It is a GIANT palace and the palace alone would have been a sight to see, but it was full of some of the most beatiful and historic art. We could have been there for days, but after 4 hours I was so tired and wanted to get out. We were trying to find our way out and were having a hard time, at one point I started to panic a little because we kept thinking we'd made it to the exit, but we actually hadn't even gotten close and I needed out ...NOW!

We FINALLY got out and headed over to the Notre Dame cathedral and that was pretty cool. After that we went on a little boat tour down the Seine River, it was a lot of fun and luckily it had a glass canopy on top because it started to pour! The next day we walked through some really pretty parks and went to see the L'Arc de Triomphe and then we were on our way to to catch another shuttle to the airport to fly to Rome!

Rome:

We got to Rome after midnight and needed to take another shuttle to get to the city center. We were pretty tired and HUNGRY! One of my best friends, Elena, happens to live in Rome with her husband, Vince. They were nice enough to come pick us up from the bus station and we stayed at their place. It didn't take long for Elena and I to start reminiscing and laughing our heads off!

The next day we slept in a bit and then discovered a market near the apartment and enjoyed some fresh fruit and some italian treats. After our brunch we headed over to the Colosseum and took a tour that was pretty interesting! I learned a lot. That night we went out to an awesome pizzaria in this random little neighborhood with Elena and Vince. It was the best pizza I have ever tasted! It was a lot of fun to spend time with them and we followed up our pizza with what else... gelato!! We seriously ate it daily! SOOO GOOD!

At the Colosseum

The next day Troy and I went to the Vatican. Elena and Vince's apartment is just 2 blocks or so from the Vatican. We went and lined up in this giant winding line for about an hour. There was this lady who seemed to be looking for someone and worked her way up the line until she was right in front of us and stayed there. I figured it wasn't a big deal until next thing we knew she was lifting the rope and letting about 25 people cut in the line with her!!! NOT COOL! Turns out she was with a tour group and I have a feeling this wasn't the first time she pulled that trick. I was really annoyed at this point, but it was no use yelling at these poeple because they didn't speak english or at least were pretending they didn't. Once we got in it turned out to be a lot more expensive than we expected and there were no maps or anything to show you where you were going or what you were looking at, which also really annoyed me. Then to add to the equation the place was just CRAWLING with people! It took me some time to get over my bad mood, but I finally forgot all about it once I was able to take in some of the incredible art in the place. It was beautiful. Interesting fact: The Vatican City happens to be it's own Nation and is one of the smallest in the world. The citizens have to show their passport to the guards to get in and they even have their own currency. Who knew??

Inside the Vatican

This is at St. Peter's Chapel where the pope gives his sermons every Wednesday. It was beautiful!

That night we left on a spontaneous trip to the coast and stayed with a friend of Elena and Vince. We caught a ferry in the morning and headed to a little coastal town named Amalfi. It was the most perfect little Italian town with the homes built into the mountains! I loved it and it was fun to see the ocean! That night we had dinner at Vince's family's place and they were just the cutest people! They actually had lived in Calgary for several years so it was nice to have something in common. After dinner we drove all the way back to Rome.

On the Ferry to Amalfi

This is Amalfi! Isn't it gorgeous??

Eating Gelato of course!

Elena and I

The next day was our last day in Italy and we spent it running around seeing some more tourists spots. We went to the Spanish steps, the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. It was a really fun day and we were really sad to have it all come to an end and have to say goodbye. Elena and Vince dropped us off at the bus station and we made plans for a reunion in 2012!



At the Trevi Fountain

We hopped on a plane to Frankfurt, spent the night in a hotel and flew home the next day. It was an awesome trip and we really had a blast! Thanks to everyone who helped make this trip possible for us! It was a dream come true! I sure hope we can go back someday!

*We took a lot more video than we did photos so maybe I'll post some of those another time.