Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Mission Reunion and Spring Football Game

Well this post is a little bit of a catch up. It is also a little bit of a personal reflection type journal entry. So just a heads up:) A few weeks ago I got to go to my mission reunion and see some of my favorite people in the world. It was so wonderful to see some of the great friends that I made while I was serving as a missionary in the wonderful Massachusetts Boston Mission. It was so fun to see all my friends and remember all the great times we had. My mission was really one of the happiest and best times in my life. I have never learned so much in such a short time. I would say that I learned more as a missionary than in all of my years of schooling. I learned so much about the gospel, life, people, service, relationships and how to communicate with others. I learned that when you are serving others and do what's right you are happy. Really I feel like I learned a lot about life in general and the kind of person I wanted to be. I got the chance to meet so many great people that have influenced my life and really helped me become who I am today. I feel so blessed that I had the opportunity to serve a mission I wish I could go back and enjoy some of those days again, they were great!
Here are just a few of the wonderful girl's I got to serve with. Left to right: Cherie, Me, Jenny and Melissa. I was actually only companions with Jenny but Cherie and I lived in the same apartment for 6 months and she was so nice to take care of me when I was a brand new missionary. Now we are great friends. And Melissa was from St. George so we had our Southern Utah connection. Plus randomly we met at the St. George Temple before we even got to Boston:) And then my wonderful friend Jenny. She and I became the best of friends in the very short three months that we served together. We served in Boston and Cambridge together and had the best time riding all the buses and trains and finding our way around the city. Our favorite was walking across the bridge into Cambridge across the Charles river, what great memories:)
Here we all are with our wonderful mission President and his wife, President and Sister Thompson. They were the best! They taught us so much and looked after us like we were there own kids. Whenever we needed anything or didn't feel well we would call Sister Thompson and she always knew just what to do. Such great people that I am so blessed to know:)
This is me and my very last companion Misty Heaton. We were only companions for 6 weeks but we became such great friends. It was great to see her since I hadn't seen her since I left Boston almost 3 years ago. I look like I'm so happy to see her. I think I was laughing when we took this and my eyes are half closed, oh well:) It was so great to see everyone but there were lots of my companions that weren't there, like you Kate if you are reading this:)

Well back to the present...last weekend we got to go down to Snow College to watch Brandon's spring football game. It was lots of fun. Shaye and I actually drove to Cedar and Mikkel and I drove over to the game together while our husbands went hunting with some friends. So it worked out well. It was fun to see Brandon play again since we always enjoyed watching him in high school. It was different not to see him in red and white but we will get used to it. 
Here we all are after the game expect Mikkel who we had lost track of for the moment. I think she was moving the car. Sorry Mikkel we should have taken another one with you:) Good job Brandon can't wait until the fall so we can come to all you games!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Happy Easter!

Well it seems like it has been awhile since I put up a new post. Tonight I have some extra time because Shaye is out of town until tomorrow. He had an interview at the hospital down in Cedar City today. I had to stay home for work and now I am just trying to get through the lonely night time hours so what better thing to do but blog:) 
This past weekend was a great one because we got to go down to Southern Utah and it is always great when we get to see family:) It was Easter weekend so we headed down to Kanab on Friday and planned to get there in time for Shaye to play in the alumni baseball tournament. Well we did get there in time and we found just another reason why we need to move back to a small town. On Tuesday we were down in Salt Lake. As we were leaving and literally getting on the freeway we were pulled over by a cop on a motorcycle. He pulled us over for going 10 miles over the speed limit and said he would give us a break and write it for 5 miles over, gee thanks:) So then on Friday as we are driving to Kanab we are going a little fast, you know like 20 miles over the speed limit, of course we pass a cop and he pulls us over. I'm thinking, great two tickets in one week! Then the officer comes to the window and it is a officer we know from Kanab. He says to us"Where are you going in such a hurry?!" Shaye tells him that we are just trying to get to the alumni baseball game. The police officer is like, oh yeah you got to get to that and asks us to just slow down a bit. Can you believe that?! And that is why we NEED to move!
Anyways we did get to the game and Shaye had a great time and his team even won!! It was a fun game to watch and Shaye even made the play to end the game. He made a double play with an out at second and a throw to 1st for a second out! Good job Shaye! 
Here's the proud winner after the game. I just realized he had already taken off his game shirt, they had Kanab Alumni shirts that were cool but he must have taken it off.

Then on Saturday morning the Easter festivities began. Shaye volunteered to take Trajen to the Easter egg hunt at the park. We had a great time and Traj was a pro egg hunter. He got so many eggs we had to stop him so that some of the other kids could have some eggs.
Shaye and Traj getting ready for the big hunt. This is serious business:)

After the morning hunt we headed over to Leeds for the annual Jackson Family Easter dinner and egg hunt. We of course had a great time and enjoyed visiting with all the family. Always the highlight is the big egg hunt. We got some good stuff in our eggs and came away with $23 and some candy:)
Here's Shaye playing some serious games of ping pong at Grandma Jackson's.
This is such a cute picture of Traj and Mikkel. Unfortunately I have been having some allergy problems with my eyes and my one eye looks a little droopy:( 
Here we are with my Dad and Mikkel coloring Easter eggs at my parents house. It was great fun had by all!:)
I thought this picture was so cute of Nate reading a story to little Traj, so sweet.
Here's the boys beating up on Dad. He's such a good sport to play around with them.
It's a bird, it's a plane.....it's Trajen!
Since it was Easter we had to get an Easter picture after church. When I was growing up we always got a new dress for Easter and we would take pictures after church. When we were really young are dresses usually all matched. This year I didn't get a new Easter dress so I just wore one of my sister Emily's so I could feel like it was new, thanks Em's:) So here is our Easter 2009 picture, plus I wanted a picture with the beautiful red cliffs of Kanab.
After church we also went out and did some kite flying on the golf course. Shaye and Nate were having a great time. Look closely you can see them in the distance.
It was a great Easter break, we loved every minute of it. Hopefully we hear this week if we got into any of the hospitals we've applied to. It would be nice to know so I can stop worrying about it!