Molly's Family Comes for a Visit - April 2005

In April of 2005 I asked my sister Molly and her husband Bruce to do a seminar in our ward on communication in marriage and just some things to kepp your marriage healthy (they are both marriage and family therapists). They were super nice and said they would, which was great because that meant they came to visit me, and it just so happened that their trip overlapped my birthday! I haven't had many birthdays since I graduated from college that I've been ablet o share with family, so it was fun. We had a great time having them with us, plus two of their kids - Mary and Adam.

One of the first things we did with them was take them to Fossil Rim, this drive thru zoo thing. We've gone there several times, and love it. You can feed the animals right out of your hand - it is awesome. Everyone has a great time when they go - and if you were to come visit us we would take you there, too.

You can even feed the giraffes out of your hand - which is quite fun.


After Fossil Rim we went to one of the biggest patches of blue bonnets we know of - it is really beautiful, especially when we are having a good wild flower year. April is the best time of year to visit Texas, not only is the weather nice but the flowers can be amazing. They get really deep and Mary and Adam had a great time playing in them. They played hide and seek and would just lie down to hide and you couldn't find them.

We took lots of pictures and had agreat time in the flowers. (Bruce didn't join us until later.)

Next on our busy schedule for the day was a horse race. There was a lot of down time, but we still had a lot of fun.

The night before my 26th birthday Molly made me a cake so Ryan could join - yummy!


The morning of my birthday they greated me with a poster they made and a super yummy breakfast - I really liked it.

I took them to the Dallas Texas Temple, just to walk around the grounds. After we went for a yummy lunch at the Cheesecake factory, they had to leave. I enjoyed spending my birthday with some of my family and having them come to visit.

Easter 2005 - A Visit to Jenny and Cam in Iowa - March 2005

In March of 2005 we decided to spend Easter with my sister Jenny and her husband and son in Iowa. Tickets were too expensive to actually fly into Iowa so we flew into Kansas City and rented a car and drove there. We spent about 3 or 4 days with them and had a great time. We saw their cute house that Jenny had made done a lot of work one, we saw Cam's school (including a calf being born and petting an owl - he was in vet school and has since graduated), we played racquetball at the rec center, went to a cheap movie, went to the local backery and had some good treats, played some games, celebrated Easter, just had a good time. We also got to see some of our good firneds in Kansas City on our way back, so that was fun as well - it was good trip.
This was Nathanael's first Easter, and so his first Easter Egg Hunt. Jenny placed eggs all over the house for him.

It did take him a little while to get the idea of what he was supposed to be doing, but once he understood he had a great time finding his treasures.



On our way from Iowa to Kansas city we decided to take a slight detour and visit Adam-ondi-Ahman. I have been here twice when I was a teenager when I was on Church History Trips, but both times it was dark by the time we arrived, so it was very interesting to see it in the day light and the whole experience was different. It was Ryan's first visit here. Adam-ondi-Ahman is a place of great historical significance for our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) as it was one of the gathering places for many of the saints in the early days of the Church and one of the places where they were forced to leave from.
The valley down below.

Christms at the Ashton Cabin (really New Years) - December 2004-January 2005

My sister and brother-in-law built this incredible cabin just two doors down from my families cabin. It was finished in 2003 and we spent Thanksgiving of 2003 with my whole family there. Unfoturnately, at the time, we didn't have a camera. But we had a great time and didn't even feel crowded even though there were over 20 of us staying there. So, 2004 was my families Christmas. We didn't actually spend Christmas at the cabin, but all headed up there for New Years. We had a lot of time playing in the snow (we did a lot of sleding and snow shoeing, it was a blast) and hanging out getting warm inside the cabin (playing games, watching movies, and just talking.) It was a lot of fun.



Ryan and I bundled up when we went out to snow shoe - it was a blast!

The snow was so gorgeous!

This is a picture of a bald eagle that we saw as we were driving home with Maggi and David - we were pretty excited.

Red Rock - December 2004

We spent Christmas of 2004 with my family and received a digital camera. We took our first pictures on a trip to Red Rock with my parents and my sister Maggi and her boyfriend David (who is now our brother-in-law). We had a great time as I introduced Ryan to some of the interesting mountain formations surrounding Las Vegas.


Check out Ryan and me with those incredible striations!













Maggi and David



Handsome man!




Beautiful Las Vegas!

Ireland - June-July 2004

Our first big adventure together ... after our honeymoon, which was also Ryan's first trip out of the US of A. This was the end of June, 2004. We flew over with my parents and spent the first few days in Dublin, which we loved! Then we drove to southwest Ireland and met my sister Mindy's family and my youngest sister Maggi. We saw several castles, old churches, some Irish historical sites, a Waterford crystal factory (super cool), and found some hidden gardens inside of some old ruins across a creek from the Irish Tintern Abby (amazing!) (the well known Tintern Abby is in Wales - which I have also been to), and listened to Irish music in pubs and went to polo and criket games (fun). We had a fantastic time. Unfortunately, at the time, the only camera we had was a little disposable one so our pictures are pretty grainy and rather awful. Here's what we've got.



So, there's a lot in thsi collage. In the upper left corner, we are at a university, outside the building where the Book of Kells is kept. If you don't know what that is don't feel bad, we didn't either before we got there. It is quite famous actually, long lines of people wait to see it. It is a Bible with a lot of pictures in it. You only actually get to see 2 pictures from the real book because it is under a glass box, the rest is just prints of the book. My favorite part of going in to see the book was going in to "the long room". It is a super long room with really high sealing and all the walls are completely covered with book shelves, it was very impressive.

The picture next to and below that are of Ryan and me and then my parents at a park with a cool tree - there are so many cool parks in Europe.

We went to several castles while we were in Ireland, I can't remember what all of them were named. Some of them are still nicely kept, and some are more like ruins. The one that is touching diagonally the Book of Kells picture was actually a really cool castle. It is largely falling a part but you can tour all over the grounds and walk all through the castle part, I think they call it the keep. Anyway, this castle was partly used in the filming of Braveheart and the window that is over my right sholder is the window that the king throws his son's lover out of. (Yes, I know you think it was in Scotland that this occured - but it was Ireland.)

In the upper right corner and then on the second to bottom row we are with my parents at some ancient ruins - we are not sure but it is speculated that these could have been falic symbols - hmm.

In the lower left corner we are at the Cliffs of Moher. The picture doesn't even come close to doing them justice (it was really rainy when we were there), but these cliffs were enormous. Think about the Cliffs of Insanity from "The Princess Bride" and you will start to get the idea - they were amazing.

In the lower right corner we are in front of their White House. They usually give tours but we happened to be there on a day that President Bush was visiting so we were not allowed in - go figure.

Diagonal left from this picture we were watching a polo match, which was quite fun. We also watched a cricket match, also fun but quite confusing. I tried to ask an Irishman what the rules of cricket were but he had little interst in explaining them to me - oh well, we still enjoyed it.

The trip was great and we would recommend Ireland to anyone.

On our way back from Ireland we stopped in San Diego. It was the first time I have been to Southern California and not thought it was just incredibly beautiful. Ireland was so incredibly green that flying into LA, it just looked like a desert and not all that attractive in comparison to where we had come from. But once we got off the plane and into San Diego we were reminded of San Diego's own beauties and of course we loved it. We stayed at my families beach condo with our friends, Robert and Shauna Bastian and their daughter Ginny. We had a great time boogy boarding and snorkeling and just hanging out. We watched the 4th of July fire works over at the fair grounds from our back deck. Ryan's best friend Holden was in graduate school during this time at UCSD so we were able to spend time with him too. It was a nice end to our long vacation. Unfortunately we were out of film and so we don't have any pictures to show for it.