Jessica!

Many of you may recognize this beautiful girl as my Freshman year roommate at BYU. Jessica Feik was such a Godsend in my life. We found ourselves practically twins since we both shared crazy passions for music & the gospel. We decided to be roommates for our Sophomore and Junior years. We would have continued had I not served a mission. So many good memories together!

Well turns out jessica and I ended up getting married one month apart from each other. She married Matthew Mitchell in November of 2008 while I married Griffin in December.

Way before Griffin and I were ready, Jessica and Matt decided to stop preventing having children. But for over a year they had no luck. I eventually told jessica (in jest) that God wanted us to have babies the same time....that when Griffin and I got pregnant that is probably when she and Matt would too...

Well what do you know? Jessica is due only 6 days after me! It is so exciting. We just found out that she is having a little boy!!!! I'm so excited and grateful to have such an amazing friend to go through the pregnancy experience with and to be able to raise our little girl with!

Non successful attempt to show my prego belly

I think this was the very first day of my second trimester.

A special day in Salt Lake City

This is the night before our dear friend Miranda was sealed for Time and all Eternity to our now dear friend Tom. They had a beautiful back yard dinner where each set of parents got to share a little more about the couple. SUCH a beautiful evening!

Me, Deb, Neddi, Amber and Miranda. All four of them served in the Ecuador together. I was just a roommate with Deb and Miranda after our missions.

Here they are the next day coming out of the Salt Lake Temple together. Aren't they SOOOOO cute? And shining? and PERFECT? Love you guys!!!
PLUS we had the honor of attending their sealing which just happened to be performed by Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the 12. It was incredible. Everyone in the room was hanging on his every word as he so purposefully and intently sealed Tom and Miranda. Apparently Tom grew up in his ward and even served as Elder Ballards Home Teacher for some time. What a day it was for us!

Quick snap shot while we were all trying to find place for group pictures. Tom's cute parents are in the background.

But you would NOT BELIEVE what a miracle Griffin and I had right before attending Tom and Miranda's sealing! We were walking towards the temple when a TALL handsome missionary walked right past us. I knew that stride anywhere and immediately called out, "Chris Miller!!!!" And he immediately turned around.

Elder Miller is my cousin and has been serving in the Temple Square Family History Mission as an IT support elder. He is working miracles of his own there and we are so proud of him! My first reaction was to go and give him a hug but immediately remembered that elders are not supposed to have contact with females. But Griffin got to give him one!

He shared with us how he just happened to be moving apartments that very minute and was moving his stuff. He had to keep to his mission so we ended up walking with him for a while. It was hard keeping up with his quick pace. But we were so grateful because we were actually looking for a quick snack for Griffin since he had flown in that morning from California. Elder Miller was able to show us where the food court was.

He even allowed us to snap a picture with him. Too bad it was so far away but here it is...

What a great, valiant missionary Chris is! We're so proud of him!

After the sealing and pics Griffin and I decided to head home. But first we stopped at TGIF in honor of the day Griffin and I got engaged. He surprised me when he proposed to me and took me to the Salt Lake Temple. On the way home he took me to eat at TGIF. We have not returned to do any work at the Salt Lake Temple since so attending the Sealing of Tom and Miranda was very special for us.

What a wonderful day we had!!!!!!!!

Hawaii Here We Come!

As many of you know my mom in law, Anita, invited Griffin and I to join her on her USBank company trip to HAWAII!!!!! Griffin was too swamped with his school load to take a 5 day vacation....so ended up being the lucky one to go. :) This is not just any business trip either...it is won only by the top performers in the US specifically during their 4th quarter campaign. Mom Anita ended up being able to go because her team placed 2nd in the entire USA for small business loans. Way to go Mom!

We left on Sunday May 22nd and flew home Thursday May 26th. This is my first real vision of hawaii...from Hawaiin Airlines plane window overlooking the Honolulu Airport. Not too different from every other airport I've been to. I guess I was just expecting trees and green and beautiful beaches everywhere...but still so exciting!

Okay the inside of the Honolulu airport was BEAUTIFUL!! Just look at this outdoor atrium area. wow!

We had a layover in the Honolulu Airport before we headed to the Lihue Airport. Somehow this bird got in and saved me from utter boredom haha.

Kauai was the island we were privileged to stay on...known to be the least populated and therefore most private and seclusive vacation spot. I didn't learn til I arrived that it is also known as "The Garden Island".

From the Lihue Airport, we took a charter bus for about 30 minutes to our luxurious hotel. On the way our tourguide pointed out the darker waters (which she said to stay away from because that is where sharks and other flesh eating fish hang out).

Aren't these trees amazing?

Our tourguide also mentioned how many scenes from Jurassic park, including waterfalls and large fields were filmed in Kauai.

I LOVED seeing all the different and unique trees. It helped it sink in that I was actually IN HAWAII!!!! These trees decorated the entrance to our hotel--the St. Regis Hotel!

Aaah! This seriously has always been a dream of mine to make it to Hawaii someday and because of Mom Anita...it came true! Thank you Mom for working as hard as you do every day in and out and then sharing the benefits with me! You're so wonderful!

We were immediately brought to check in at the Hospitality Suite where complimentary beverages and snacks are provided during afternoons daily. They gave us these gorgeous magenta leis too! This is just a sneak peak of the magestic view we enjoyed. Below is MY bed. Yeah...you heard me right...not our bed...but MY bed. Mom and I each got our own KING. And believe me they were heavenly! I never wanted to get out of bed in the mornings haha.

Okay this might be hard to see what I'm talking about but here is just a little taste of the kind of accommodations the St. Regis provided. I had never seen this before but this is a view from inside our bathroom...looking out into the rest of the room. The bright light in the background is our giant window overlooking the ocean, the beach, the mountains and the outside pool area. But notice how in one pic you can see the rest of the room while the other pic you can only see a white screen?........Well, with the push of one button....called the privacy button we could shower and get ready without being seen. But if we wanted to be able to keep contact with each other and not have a huge barrier between us while putting make up on etc...just take off the privacy button. Quite original, hey?

Our first night we were welcomed by a buffet dinner out on the lawn. I unfortunately only got a picture after the sunset and when everyone scattered from their tables because it started to RAIN! lol If you look closely you can see people huddled under the trees waiting for the rain spurt to pass...which it did about 10 minutes later. :)

This is Mom and me waiting under a tree... :)

What a wonderful first day we had!

Ziplining in Kauai!

Probably one of the top 2 highlights of my trip was going ZIPLINING!!!! Yes, no joke. Mom was planning on going too until Griffin reminded her that she is scared of heights! haha. So she went to the botanical gardens while I joined other USBank winners from around the US to go Ziplining!

The ziplining course was actually on a ranch.

This is a picture of one of my instructors and one of my group members. Our instructors were awesome! They taught us where to hold the cords in a way we could control what direction we faced or if we wanted to spin in circles as we zoomed across etc. I learned how to give myself as much speed as possible by holding my legs up close to me and toward the sky as well.

Isn't it gorgous? We got to zip over rivers, streams, rainforest terrain and more! Gosh it was so paradisiacal!

Also as part of the adventure we got to walk across this bridge with huge gaps in the steps. Seriously we were about 150 feet above a river which looked super tiny while looking down. The big branches and rocks stood out to me beneath as I imagined what it would be like to fall onto them... and yes that is me on the bridge :)

Each of the 10 ziplines were preceeded by a sign (naming the zipline and designating it's length)

I had a couple short videos but I couldn't figure out how to post them.

One of the best parts was when we, as a group, hiked to a nearby pond with a waterfall. This is me about to jump in! You can see many of my group members already had and were tubing in the background. It was so gorgous and relaxing that I really could have stayed in there for over an hour.

...but I couldn't because we still had more ziplining to do!

This is the very last one...the King Kong. I'm trying to remember just how long it really was ...I think it was 1200 feet long. Those of us who don't weigh very much had to really get a running jump into it because we don't have much weight to carry us all the way across. But with good form (putting my legs up...booty first) I made it!

I couldn't not include this... This is a baby pineapple. Apparently it takes over one year for just one pineapple to mature! I never knew that!