Graduation - May 2008 - Dr. Mary Amanda Earl Colby (yeah, it's a mouth full, we'll just stick with Amanda)

I know, it's amazing - after 5 years of graduate school, 5 1/2 years of BYU (I really graduated from there after 4 1/2, just did an extra after my mission because I love school), 12 years of public school, and probably 2 of preschool, I think I am done with being a formal student. I think I have all the degrees I will get (at least all I currently plan on.) That is a lot of school. I would say I loved every bit of it, but that wouldn't be quite accurate. I value all of it, and have loved a lot of it. I love learning, loved the social aspect of BYU especially as well as many other experiences, and am very comfortable as a student (should be having spent 24 of my 29 years in school.) I am super grateful for all I learned (I really value my education), for all the wonderful teachers I had (I do have favorites - Miss Winston, Mrs. Bartusek, Mrs. Lange, Mr. Brum, Mr. Yancey, Madame Von Carr, Mr. Caldwell, Ms. Fowler, Mr. Ginger, Dr. Jeffrey, Dr. Bradshaw, Dr. Rhees, Colleen Whitley, Dr. Butler, Dr. Stanford, Dr. Weaver, Hugh), and for all the people that helped me to get my education (especially my parents and Ryan, but all my family were supportive, my grandparents were such great examples, I had great friends to help me through school - not only to support me but to make it fun while there.) I am super grateful!

Anyway, so I graduated, from Baylor University. Not only did my parents come out for my graduation, but so did my sister Mindy and her son Spencer, and my sister Jenny. (Others of my family wanted to come but were unable to - like my sister Molly who had a baby 2 days after it.) It was really fun to have my family here to celebrate with me. Ryan's whole family came down for my graduation, which was super nice. My graduation was LONG, and so BORING. I hate graduations, even when they are for me. Maybe especially when they are for me because it isn't like you get to sit by people you know so during that whoel 3 1/2 hours I was just sitting there. Two 1/2 of those hours were just name calling - yeah, it was awful. They leave th PhDs to the very end, so half the people had left by the time it was our turn, I don't blame them. I did get a little nervous right before they called my name, a little emotional anyway. Both my doctoral and masters professors were on the stage to hood me, which was kind of cool.

My sister Mindy took all the pictures of me with my family on her camera and I haven't gotten any copies of them from her yet. When I do I will add some.

That night Ryan planned a celebration party for me which was so nice of him. He displayed the poster that I had presented in Savannah as well as a copy of my dissertation and thesis and some other school stuff. It made me feel good that he was so proud of me. I am so blessed to have such a great husband and it was nice of people to come by and congratulate me, but mostly it was nice to jsut get to visit with friends and family.

People ask me if it feels good to be graduated. For those of you who are wondering - I am still trying to figure out who I am without being a student. I really liked myself as a student, and though I was ready to be done with my dissertation and ready to move on to something else, until I figure out what to do next, I don't know that I can say it feels good, just different. I liked being a student so all of you students out there, enjoy it while it lasts!

D&C 93:96 - The glory of God is intelligence

D&C 6:7 - Seek not for riches, but for wisdom

D&C 88:118 - seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith

Earlier in May Ryan's mom also graduated, which was just as exciting. She has been working on her associates degree for a long time so we were super proud of her!

I know the picture is fuzzy (it's because it is really a video), but Ryan's mom, Janet, is the one at the very start of the ramp, looking toward the camera.

Actually, Ryan's sister Sherri also graduated with her Ph.D. close to the same time, but the previous December. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of it, (which is why neglected to blog about it earlier.) But we were super proud of her too, she got her degree in education and now has a tenure-track position at Texas A&M Commerce, so that is pretty awesome.

Tornado - April 2008

So, a tornado touched down a few miles from our house, well maybe 10, in April 2008. We were really lucky and didn't really even get hale damage, (although our poor fruit trees took a beating - our fence was undamaged though and our trees still had leaves on them and didn't loose any branches.) After the storm we decided to go check out the path of the tornado and although we felt super bad for the people affected, we were quite fascinated at the same time. It was amazing because right across the street from all these destroyed houses there were houses that looked like they had been untouched. I know they had some flood damage - but no structural damage. When you see what a tornado is capable of doing you can see how Dorothy could have been carried away to Oz. More realistically, you can see how the earth will be destroyed, not only by the help of wicked people and wars, but by nature - hail the size of Volcswagon Beatles await us, that will be something.

Hawaii - February-March 2008

Ryan's parents decided that they wanted to take advantage of an opportunity they had to go to Hawaii and stay at a time-share-type Marriott resort in Kauai. It was right on the beach on the southern coast and was 2 bedroom and they invited the whole family to join them. Ryan and I had been planning since our first year together to go to Alaska for our 5 year anniversary, (which was this past summer) so we really hadn't been planning for any other big trips, especially nothing on the level of Hawaii. We considered rescheduling Alaska, but we had been looking forward to it for so long (several of my family members had gone and just raved about it, as well as some of our friends) and we have heard that you should travela s much as you can before ahving children because it is so much more difficult after (I guess this is one of the blessings of our not having kids yet.) But we also know that much of the expense of a trip to Hawaii is the cost of lodging, so having a free place to stay in Kauai, right on the beach, and a nice place at that, was very tempting. We were still wishy-washy because of our Alaska trip and not wanting to over-indulge ourselves, so his parents, really wanting us to accompany them, offered to give us a few hundred airline miles, the amount we would need to cover what we lacked to get Ryan a free flight over there. So how could we say no to that - free flights and a free place to stay? We booked our trip to Hawaii. And since we were going to be over there anyway, we decided to extend our trip and do an extra week in Maui. We found a cheap condo rent in South West Maui, right across the street from the beach. It wasn't a great beach and it wasn't a super fancy condo, but it was less than $100/night, so it worked for us. Ryan and I are so grateful to both out parents for all their kindness to us. We are so blessed, and we know it.

We got in to Hawaii super late, so pretty much straight to bed. But pretty much first thing the next morning we headed out to snorkel right at the beach of our hotel. It was a great location and we saw some pretty colorful fish. My favorite is the one in the center on the top row. I can't remember what it is called because the name is super long, as Hawaiian names tend to be, but it is their state fish. The first time I saw one I seriously started cracking up laughing right into my snorkel - I thought the neon blue ilps were just hillarious, I love it.


Later that day we all headed to see what they call the Spouting Horn. There is this rock formation such that when waves come in sometimes water gets sucked up and then shoots up, as can be seen in the pictures. It doesn't happen every time, but you can hear the sucking sound happening, which is interesting. Ryan was a good sport and stayed posed for several minutes so I could get a picture with him and a good spout. While we were watching the Spouting Horn we also got to see some sea turtle swimming around, which was fun, though I didn't get any good pics of them.


The next day we went to Waimea State Park. It was incredible. There is this huge, beautiful canyon in the middle of it, lots of beautiful lookouts, and lots of waterfalls - it has been calle dThe Grand canyon of the Pacific. We wanted to do some hiking while we were there, so once we got up into the park we stopped at a lookout point to get our barings, use the restroom, and take in some views. The view was incredible and we saw some mountain goats, which was pretty fun. I guess we were pretty lucky - one of the workers says not many people ever see them. (I don's know what happened to those pics - too bad.) While at this stop we also saw this hen with a bunch of chicks. There are chickens all over Hawaii. The roosters will wake you up in the morning. But watching the hen with her chicks we were reminded of the scripture where Jesus says "I would have gathered you in as a hen gethereth her chicks, but you would not" (or something like that). Watching, all sorts of symbolism could be drawn from the behavior of the hen and chicks. The hen was always willing to accept the chicks, and whenever they got scared they ran to her and she would cover them up. She never forced them under though. And when they wanted out she always let them. Some stayed under more than others, but lots of times if one came out from under all the others would follow. Anyway, it was just interesting watching them and thinking of the scripture.

The hen with the chicks int he parking lot - you can see their feet poking out in the front of her; We liked watching the roosters on the beach, it was pretty funny; these little birds were red-headed cardinals, which were really pretty and all over Kauai

We then headed off to the start of our hike, which getting to the start point was a bit of an adventure in itself because the road wasn't the best maintained, but the drive was still gorgeous with all the vegetation and the pretty views with the overlooks. Ryan, his sister Heather, and I did a really pretty hike down to a couple of water-falls. I don't remember the name of the hike but we really enjoyed it. I think it may have been Canyon Trails to Waipo'o Falls, but I am not positive. Anyway, the hike was beautiful and we got to see one small waterfall that was really pretty and then ended at the top of one huge waterfall (really 2, one that runs in to the other), but there was no good way to get pics of them without risking falling oover the cliff - sorry).


We ate some lunch in this meadow surrounded by mountains covered in evergreen tress - it totally felt and looked like Utah, so weird, but beautiful. And then we headed to several scenic lookouts. There was this one that while we were there the fog came in and one minute you could see down into the canyon below and then all you could see was white, it was kindof cool really.


The next morning Ryan and I did a shore dive - it was awesome. Once we figured out diving in Hawaii (every place is a little different for us and as we are still learning it takes us a little while to get situated, but as long as we have patience and stick together we are okay), we saw some amazing things. Our favorite thing this dive was this sea turtle. We wished we had a camera with us because we first just saw him lying in this cave, so we watched him for awhile, and then he came out and started swimming and he was so graceful, and we swam with him, and it wasn't like he was trying to get away from us, we could have touched him if we wanted to - in fact, it think it did touch him, and if I had a camera I could have gotten a picture of Ryan swimming with his arm around him or something - totally posed, it was amazing. We swam iwth im for about 15 minutes before he left us, we loved it. We also saw these really cool sea urchins - big, red, and with thick needles, about the thickness of pencils, and blunt-tipped. I really liked them. We saw a bunch of other stuff - Ryan saw an eel. We really love diving and are so grateful to our friend Hugh who taught us how, it has greatly added to our life, just opened up a part of the world to us. We highly recommend it.

Later that day we went with Ryan's family to see some of the waterfalls on Southeast Kauai. I don't remember their names, but you can see them in the pictures below - there are two different ones.


That evening we decided to just walk around our hotel grounds and the beach by the hotel, which we enjoyed. Our hotel was really quite beautiful and our beach was awesome. That night a turtle decided to come layout.


We love watching the sunset over the ocean. We are not unique in this. About half-an-hour before sunset we were walking down the road and we saw this huge line-up of elderly people in folding chairs facing the beach, but on the sidewalk - kind of reminding us of the movie "Cacoon". They were outside a retirement center. We couldn't figure out what they were doing at first, and then we realized that they were staking out their places to watch the sunset. I suppose this is a nightly activity for them. It made me smile because it reminded me of my Grammy, she loved watching the sunset over the ocean - me too.

The next day while Ryan's family went on a boat ride around Kaui, Ryan and I hiked the Na Pauli coast. It was awesome! One of the prettiest hikes I have ever been on. All the views were gorgeous - the cliffs are stunning, the water is amazing, going through bamboo forests was fun, the trail itself was interesting and quite adveturous in places were it would get slippery (which I liked adventourous hikes), and we went to the waterfall as well, which was gorgeous (though the swim to get up-close and personal with it was REALLY cold.)

That was our last day of big adventures in Kauai. The next day was Sunday - we went to church, packed up, and said good-bye to Kauai and hello to Maui.

Heather came with us to Maui for a day. Our first stop in Maui were beaches. At the first beach we went to (Black Sand Beach - aka Oneuli Beach) we were walking and we saw something flapping around in the water really close to the shore, maybe 5 feet in. We went closer to inspect and found it to be a shark, so that was pretty cool. The second beach we went to was Big Beach. This was Ryan's and my favorite Hawaiian beach probably - it was long, the sand was perfect, and there were no buildings along it, just vegetation and hills, super pretty. We got to watch the sunset while we were walking along it and we just fell in love with it - you would have too.

The next morning we started out by going to the Iao Valley and seeing the Iao Needle. We did what hiking was available in the area. It was very pretty.

Then we drove the West Maui loop. It has only been recently that they have paved the road the entire way, but driving this loop is an adventure in itself. The road is super narrow (often just one lane wide) and along a cliff and very windy. It is gorgeous though as you are always looking over the coast on one-side and often have beautiful vegetation on the other. But it is very scary as many of the turns are blind and you never know what could be coming up. But Ryan is a good driver and when I just couldn't handle the tension I would just close my eyes for a while and get control of my nerves. Mostly I just enjoyed it though. We had many other great adventures while in West Maui. We did a short hike out to Mushroom Rock (just a a geological formation, but interesting and the view from there was really pretty), another short hike to Olivine Pools (these were really cool - tide pools formed from lava beds and right next to the ocean, really pretty), a somewhat longer hike to the Nakalele Blowhole (very cool - not so much the destination as the blowhole was no where near as impressive as Spouting Horn, but the hike out to it was amazing - described as walking through an "acid war zone" in the book we aread, it was suggested someone should make a movie there and we agree, it was amazing), and snorkeled at Honolua Bay. We then took Heather to the airport and said goodbye.

The next morning Ryan and I went on two boat dives. Unfortunately we thought if we put our camera in a waterproof casing we had that we could take it on our dives with us (according to what we read on the internet about the waterproof pouch we should have been able to). Well, this was not the case and it ruined our camera, so we have no pictures of the rest of our trip, just video. Since blogging is not as fun without pictures I will just hit the highlights of the rest of our trip

-we did our boat dives, which were fun and we saw some things we had never seen before including white-tip sharks, blue dragon nudebranch, and frog fish

-Ryan woke up with the stomach flu or food poisoning or something and we lost a whole day of our trip with him sleeping it off - poor Ryan, poor me

-we drove Road to Hana - absolutely beautiful, we enjoyed our adventures though they were somewhat subdued because of Ryans depleted energy - our favorite things were Venus Pool, Black Sand Beach, and 7 Sacred Pools

-went to Haleakala - we did not get there early enough to watch the sunrise, but we did hike down into it and we loved it, it is one of those places where even though you are basically always in the same place and your view is the same, the way it looks keeps changing with the position of the sun - it was beautiful and we had a great time

-snorkeling - we did some great snorkeling and saw some great coral with lots of trumpet fish, puffer fish, and these other interesting things I've never seen before and have no idea what they are - one time after snorkeling a bee was on my towel when I was drying off, I didn't know this and it stung me on my bum! I couldn't believe it, it hurt so badly! Not my favorite adventure but kind of a funny experience, especially with Ryan exposing half my backside to the entire beach so he could look at the sting. Haha. I don't think anyone was looking though.

-driving to La Perouse Bay - it is the very southern most tip of Maui, you can see on the mountains lava streams and you are driving on a road that is really just a lava river. You get to the end of this and we wanted to go snorkeling in the bay so we found where we were supposed to start our hike to the water. Apparently the piled rocks we passed on the way were actually ancient ruins (who knew?) And then we get to these coves made from lava and while we are snorkeling totally surrounded by lava you can look over and see a beach that looks just like you would imagine a Hawaii beach to look like, with sand and palm trees.

We LOVED the diversity of Hawaii. I think that was my favorite things about it. You would be on an island that really was quite small and you would be in one spot that would remind you of Utah, and then a few miles from there might remind oyou of Southern California, a few miles from there Northern California, a few miles from there the moon or Washington, a few miles from there the Carribean. It has to be one fo the more diverse places on the earth and it was amazing and fascinating! We really enjoyed our trip.

Christmas 2007

Ryan and I never put up Christmas lights. Ryan always says it's not worth it because we aren't home for Christmas or we don't have enough time to enjoy them because we don't start decorating early enough. In 2007 we were going to be in Texas for Christmas and I made sure to buy some Christmas lights before we left for Thanksgiving so right after we got back we could put them up so we'd have plenty of time to enjoy them. Well, putting them up turned out to be quite an adventure. We didn't realize before we had taken them out of the package and tested them that there were parts of our roof that are really high, too high for us to reach by just standing on our step stool. We only own 2 sadans, no trucks or SUVS to bring home a ladder in. But I was determined to have Christmas lights so we developed a system to get me on to the roof. Ryan climbed on to our 2 step step-stool while I got on to a bar stool - I stepped off the bar stool, on to Ryan's back, and pulled myself onto the roof. Very safe, I know. Then I went around clipping all the lights to the roof. Getting off the roof was even more challenging than getting on. After we got them all plugged in and were so excited we headed off somewhere, only to come hom after dark and find that helf of one strand didn't work. We had checked them all before putting them up, but once they were all pluggged in they didn't work. Very frustrating. Some days it worked, some it didnt' - go figure. I am not sure whether we will have lights on our house again.

Thanksgiving 2007

2007 was my families year for Thanksigiving, and we had a ton of fun when we went to Las Vegas to celebrate. One of the fun things that we did was take Ryan to Hoover Dam for the first time. We saw the bridge that will bypass the dam so travelers between Arizona and Las Vegas won't have to cross the dam. Eventually it will be finished, but it will be quite a feat. The water level is incredibly low, as can be seen in the pictures, but still, the dam itself is quite impressive and we enjoyed our visit.


After going to the dam we headed over to the lake. We did a hike at the lake, the Tunnels Trail I think it was called, with my sister Molly's family, and my sister Maggi and her husband David and their dog Tilli. I think there are probably prettier hikes at the lake, but they take longer to drive to. We enjoyed our hike and it was still pretty and the tunnels were fun. Mostly we just enjoyed spending time together and it was nice to be by the lake while we did.

My nieces Mary and Paige; My brother-in-law Bruce and nephew Adam, and Maggi, Paige, and Molly; My niece Melissa; Me and Ryan; everyone walking on the trail; Paige, Ryan, and Melissa (we call her Lissa); Tilli; Ryan and Lissa (During this hike while Ryan carried Lissa around at one point I talked about how they had bonded and Lissa repeated me. Apparently she really took this to heart because after that when she would come to my parent's house where we were staying she would start looking for Ryan andwould want to spend some time with him. A couple days after we came back to Texas we got a phone call from a crying Lissa wanting to talk to him - she was very upset when she found out he had left. She still gets very excited when he comes for a visit - it is super cute.); Me and Ryan.

Ryan and I love going to National Parks. And we love going places we've never been and exploring and using our time as well as we can when we are on vacation. So, we decided that while my family finished out their work week in Las Vegas we would head to Death Valley, which is only a couple hours from Las Vegas. It was the perfect time of year to go as it was not crowded and it wasn't hot but you could still camp because it didn't get super cold at night. So we headed there and did a lot of hiking. I don't remember all the names of the places within Death Valley we went, but it was all super cool. We went to the low point in the park, which is the lowest point in the northern hemisphere. We went to what I think was called Badlands - these saltflats, which were really cool. The salt is left after the salt water evaporates and leaves these hexagon-shaped salt deposits all over. And they reflect the mountains all around because they are so flat. There were also these other salt structures that form more castle-like peaks all over. The mountains were very colorful and there were a lot of pretty views. The thing that was really incredible about Death Valley is that it is huge and every 5 miles or so you get to a new area with new geography that is totally different than the last one, but it is all pretty or at least interesting.

That night we hiked to a high point that we had read was a great place to view the sunset. From there you could see almost the whole park - at least all the places we had been. From it, it was amazing watching the sun set. If you are one who doesn't think the desert is pretty, go to Death Valley and watch the sunset from one of the peaks. The colors are incredible. You will be looking at a spot one minute, and then as the sun is going down a minute later it looks totally different with all different colors. It was so amazing and just as pretty as anywhere else I have been.

Our next morning we started with a hike through the sand dunes as we read that they were one of the best places to view the sunrise. We were not dissappointed. The hike was difficult as you would completely sink into the sand with many steps, but it was gorgeous, and fun.

After the sand dunes and cleaning up our campsite we did another cool hike through this canyon like area. The walls were pretty much all stone and sometimes got very close together and often you were walking on stone as well. It was fun. As we headed out we passed by "Devil's Cornfield" which is seen on the picture on the left - these bush-like things that catch a lot of sand in the wind and become these unique structures. And then we were done with Death Valley - at least for one trip, but hope to get back soemtime because we saw less than half of it and really enjoyed it.


I have never been a fan of going to the Strip, I hate crowds and the smell of smoke and gambling doesn't interest me in the least. The only things that do entice me about the Strip are if there is a new hotel and I like the fountain dance and flower garden at the Bellagio. Ryan really likes the Strip - not for long amounts of time, but he does find it fascinating. So they opened the new Planet Hollywood Hotel, giving us a reason to go - add that to the flower garden, and I can take an hour or two. I was not impressed with the Planet Hollywood Hotel. I really like themed hotels and there was so much potential with that theme - but they didn't use the theme hardly at all and it wasn't very nice, unimpressive. But the garden was of course, beautiful as always and we enjoyed spending time with my parents and my sister Jenny and her sons who accompanied us.

Me and my dad; Jenny (my sister) and her sons, Ben and Nathan; Ryan; my parents; me and Ryan

I am not sure why we don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving itself, but we had a great Thanksgiving, and we also enjoyed spending time with my family - playing games, celebrating all the brothers-in-laws birthdays, going to Rebel basketball games, lots of eating, and just hanging out. It was a fantastic Thanksgiving.

Savannah - October 2007

So, during my fourth year of gradaute school I finally needed to present some of my research at a professional conference. Although this is probably an exciting thing for most people, it is not the case for me. It is not like it was a huge deal, I didn't have to give a speach or anything, it was just a poster presentation which means you take a poster where you have displayed the results of your research into a room with a 100-200 other such posters and stand by it while people walk around, look at these posters and if they find your poster particularly interesting they stop and ask you questions about it. So being asked questions should be a good thing, you should at least find it flattering. Those who have known me a long time know that I had a public-speaking break down when I was in 8th grade and have spent the rest of my life trying to over-come this phobia. Although I am much better now than I was then (I don't hyperventalate any more so that is progress) I still dread it. Being asked questions was not a good thing for me, I would much rather have had people ignore me and my poster. But anyway, this was my first professional meeting to go to and my first time to Savannah. Ryan didn't get to go with me and I traveled with my office-mate/lab partner and good friend Robyn Baldridge. We had a good time exploring the city while not in the conference. Savannah, what I saw of it, was quite pretty and peacefull, kind of slow paced, what you would imagine it to be like.

On our fligth back I guess they didn't have enough coach-seats because they bumped Robyn and me up to business class - we were more than happy to oblige, probably my one and only time; they had these huge pumpkins outside this one candy store becuase it was Fall - I love pumpkins; Robyn, Nick (this guy that works for this girl that used to be a student of Dr. Stanford - my professor), and me

Holden Gets Married - August 2007

Holden, one of Ryan's best-friends from college, got married in August - also in San Diego. So I went back to San Diego and Ryan came this time, of course. We went a week ahead of time, partly just because we love San Diego and partly to spend some extra time with Holden before the wedding. My parents were there with us most of the week before and my sister Molly and her came for a lot of it as well. We went with my parents to Old Town and saw the new (not so new any more really) Joseph Smith movie at the LDS visitors center, which I really enjoyed. We walked around Old Town for awhile and saw parts of it I never remeber seeing before, and we went to the yummy Mexican resteraunt Ryan and I had discovered with his family when we had gone for Christmas - we had flan, mmm. When Molly's family came we went to Scrip's Aquarium, which was awesome. For some reason I don't have any pictures of my favorite thing there, not sure why. They are called sea dragons - they are like these really frilly sea horses, super cool. Look them up. We also went to Seaport Village and had a lot of fun looking at all the shops and watching the people with their birds and stakcing rocks and different things.

Adam and Mary (Molly's kids) with some guys birds; there were these cute ducks walking all around Seaport village; one of the big aquariums, with Mary holding Melissa, my dad, my mom, and Adam; a guy showinghis birds to Molly, Melissa, Mary, and Adam


We played on the beach a lot together which was fun and we went snorkeling at La Jolla Cove and La Jolla Shores. It was awesome! Ryan and I swam out a ways while we were snorkeling and through these caves. When we came out of the caves we saw a sea lion sitting on a rock and totally vocalizing, it was making us laugh. Then we looked the other direction and saw tons more sea lions on rocks and swimming around so we swam over closer to them. There was this one spot were there was a rock about 3 feet from a cliff. I say rock but it was huge. Anyway, we went over to this spot and swam through this path made between the rock and cliff and sea lions were swimming right below us also in the path, we could have toughted them if we'd wanted to. It was amazing, I loved it. The snorkeling itself was awesome, we saw tons (including sharks! Ryan and I also went scuba diving. This time we were successful. We took Holden with us the first day we went, at La Jolla Shores. The second day it was just the two of us at La Jolla Cove. We loved both locations. Some of our favorite things we saw were sting rays, shovel nose guitar fish, sand dollar beds, lobsters, and halibut. We were very happy to have done successful shore dives. Another fun thing we did was go to Sea World. Ryan had never been to the one in San Diego and it had been a long time since I had. We had a great day - probably our favorite thing was being able to pet the dolphins.

Soon after my family left friends started showing up for the wedding. First came Ryan's mission companion as well as his and Holden's roommate, Adam. Later that day Kirk (another of Ryan's roommates) and Heather (Kirk's wife) arrived. That night was Holden's bachelor party - but they said Heather and I should join in - so we did. After dinner we played lazer tag, and it was fun. The next morning was the wedding and it was really nice. Nicole's (Holden's wife) mission president sealed them which I thought was awesome. Between the sealing the reception there was a little time so we hit the beach. We tried to figure out the world of surfing without any surf instruction - here is what it looked like...

Bottom row - Kirk and Heather; Adam; Ryan - not bad for a first go

We showered and headed over to the reception which was really nice. We found though that none of Holden's brother's had planned any decorations for their car. We thought that was rather sad so Kirk, Heather, Ryan and I went in search of something appopriate to send them on their way.

Heather decorating the car; Adam, Kirk, Ryan; the car; decorating; Adam, Holden and Nicole; Heather and Kirk, Holden and Nicole coming out of the temple

Wendy Got Married - July 2007

My best-friend Wendy Lewis got married in July of 2007. She and Jake decided to get married in the San Diego LDS Temple, which was fine with me because I love San Diego, and then have their reception in my parent's backyard in Las Vegas the next weekend (which worked too since she is practically a sister and all my sisters and I had our receptions in the backyard.) So I flew into San Diego the night before the wedding and Maggi (my youngest sister) and I had a bachelorette party for Wendy that night at Claim Jumper. (Maggi and I were two of her brideis maids. Maggi and Wendy lived together while at BYU and got to be even closer then that they already were from Wendy always being over when we were growing up.)


Me and Wendy, Wendy and Maggi, My mom and Wendy, all of us at the party

The next day was the wedding. Wendy looked gorgeous in her dress that I think she got for like $100 off of E-bay, and Jake looked super handsome and they were so happy and it was perfect. Of course, any temple marriage where the couple is truly committed is perfect, I love that the word " 'Til death do you part are never said", but rather they are married for time AND eternity. So much better to know there won't be an end to the happy union they are just starting (or at least there doesn't have to be.) After the wedding and some pics we headed to California Pizza Kitchen for some yummy food.

Wendy and Me



Wendy and Jake went with their photographer and spent hours taking some incredible pictures all over San Diego, which left us time to play on the beach.

These pictures are largely of my sister Jenny's family - the youngest boy is Ben and the other is Nathnan, her husband is Cam. And then there are pics of my dad and me and Ben and my dad.

For some reason, after taking pictures, Jake and Wendy thought it would be great fun to spend the evening with all their friends and family that had come for their wedding having a bonfire on the beach. So we all gathered for a few hours for that, and they did seem to enjoy themselves, and so did we.

Wendy and Jake

We headed back to Vegas the next day to prepare for the reception while they headed for their honeymoon in Hawaii. I had a great time hanging out with my family while in the midst of reception preperations. Unfortunately, during this week my sister Emily got super sick and ended up in the ICU for a week and having 5 units of blood transfered. She made it, but I had plenty of time to bond with her kids, which was fun. At least for me. When I picked her kids up one day when she was still home but finally had consented to go see a doctor they hadn't known they weren't goign to be able to see their mom for a week (they weren't allowed to visit her once she was admitted to the ICU, and it ended up being an emergency situation so they hadn't gotten to say good bye.) One of her older sons was talking to her on the phone one day and said "Amanda will never bring me home." Their poor baby, Seth, was only 6 months old and had never been away from her, so it was a little stressful for him, too. But we made it through, and I got to tend a cute baby for a few days and some fun little boys. We played with other cousins and swam and had a good time. I got to go to dinner with my mom and sisters during this time too. I always enjoy being home.

Baby Seth and his big brother Andy.

At the end of the week Jake and Wendy had returned and it was time for hte reception. It was beautiful and we all had a good time, despite the heat.

Maggi and David, Me and my best-friend from BYU, Steve, Me and Wendy

Family Pictures - July 2007

Janet, Ryan's mom, really wanted to get family pictures taken for her birthday, since the last time they'd had them was before I had joined the family - I don't know how long before. So in the heat of the Texas summer we headed bucked up and complied. Here are the results.

Sherri, Heather, Ryan, Me, Frank, Janet

Mustang Island - June 2007

Ryan's parents decided to take a trip to North Padre Island in the middle of June 2007. Ryan didn't have any days he could take off for this trip and at first I was completely against the idea of goign with them, even thought hey were trying to convince me I should. I didn't like the idea of leaving Ryan for 5 days. But his sister Heather decided to go (she is the same age as me and we get along really well) and I really didn't have much going on (my summers were always really slow during when I was in school - kind of like my life is now :) ), so I decided to go with them. I had never been to Mustang Island before, I like new adventures. We first went to Corpus Cristi, another place I had never been, spent the night there, and the next day went to the Texas State Aquarium with Ryan's cousin Taryn (whom I had never met before - but I like her a lot). It was a nice aquarium and we had a good time. After lunch we headed to Mustang Island. We headed out to the beach soon after ariving. Heather and I had fun jumping the waves and playing in the ocean. We got boogie boards the next day to suplement our enjoyment and got Frank (Ryan's dad to come out with us.) I got Heather and Frank to do tricks with me in the pool (flips and we attempted to do sychronized swimming - my respect for the sport has significantly increased after my failed attempts.) We saw TONS of dolphins, it was amazing. Taryn came a couple times to have fun on the beach with us and play some games with us, she even cooked us dinner. We had a really great trip, and it would only have been better if Ryan had been able to come too.

San Antonio - May 2007

Ryan's work gets really busy at some inconvenient times, especially his last position. He ended up having to work all through Memorial day weekend, including Saturday and Monday. Luckily, one of his bosses took pitty on him and other members of his group and was super nice and gave them two days off for every day they worked that weekend (nothing like that had ever happened before - he had never been compensated for working overtime before so we were super excited.) We decied to use one of those days right away and took a long weekend the next weekend (just Friday off.) We headed down to San Antonio. We spent most of the day Friday at Schlitterbahn, which is a water park in New Braunfels (just north of San Antonio). It’s huge and super fun. It is one of the top ranked water parks in the world. It is actually two parks. One of them has more traditional water park slides, but also has water-coasters, which are really fun. They are like roller coasters but you are propelled by shooting water. I really enjoyed those rides but the lines for them were pretty long. The other side of the park also has traditional slides, but also has lots of tube chutes, which mostly just use water from the Comal River and two of the rides end with you floating in the river. We had a great time then headed to San Antonio.
Saturday morning we went to the San Antonio temple. What a gorgeous temple, one of my favorites. The endowment room had all it’s walls beautifully painted, like a pretty Texas landscape. There was also pretty stained glass windows. The second room (the terrestrial room)was also very pretty, the walls weren’t painted but the sealings were higher and there were more stained glass windows, it was beautiful. There is tons of wood throughout the temple. In the entry of the temple it seemed to be a dark cherry. In the endowment room it was maybe a rose wood. In the terrestrial room it was maybe a pine. And then the celestial room was just gorgeous. Very light wood and beautiful stained glass windows which had blue bonnets in them. I really like it when they make temples fit the area they are in. I think it is one of the prettiest (though super small – those were the only endowment rooms, there are only 2 sealing rooms, and the changing rooms were just tiny, there’s not a chapel waiting room, or a kitchen, and there is not clothes rental) temples I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few. One interesting thing about it is before a session starts (I assume it is this way always since it is what happened for us) the temple president comes in and talks to everyone in the session. I can’t remember what all he said, I do remember he asked us to the think of the person who we were doing the work for during the session. I think he maybe also blessed us. One thing that was unique about the temple that I really liked is that the baptismal font can be seen from just outside the dressing rooms. The wall to it is glass so it is easily seen. Most temples you go to do a session you never get to see the font. They also have a water fall thing inside that is very pretty. After looking around a tiny bit we went out side and took pictures while we walked around the grounds. I say took pictures, but we actually only got a video, though we had brought our camera the batteries were out – dang it – at least we got it on video, super pretty.(That is why there are no pics to show you.) If you get the chance to go to the San Antonio temple I would recommend it - so pretty.
Later we went to the McNay Art Museum and it was really quite impressive including works of Picasso, Manet, Monet, Rodin, Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse as well as memorabilia of different plays including Miss Saigon, Madame Butterfly, the King and I, the Mucado, south Pacific, and a bunch more. I enjoyed looking at all the stuff, particularly the stuff for Miss Saigon. And it was free - so that was great.
We hung out if a mall for awhile while it cooled off then walked along the Riverwalk, had dinner on the Riverwalk, walked some more, then took a boat ride on the Riverwalk, then walked some more. It was really nice. The pictures I have of it don't really do it justice, it is really nice along the river with all the lights at night. Last time we went to San Antonio we didn't get to do it because it was really rainy the whole time we were there, so I was excited to get to do it this time.
Sunday morning I woke up with a headache, and didn’t feel like getting going too early. After a little while we decided to go to Brackenridge Park (a pretty big park, 343 acres) and walk around. We didn’t walk super fast as it was fairly hot and fast Sunday (zaps your energy) but we were out for a few hours and enjoyed seeing it. There was a Japanese-style garden that is currently being renovated that we particularly liked. I think once the renovations are done it will be really nice. After the park we went back to the hotel, packed up, checked out, and headed to church. Following church we came back to Burleson. It was a nice weekend, though, a little pre-anniversary getaway.

Ennis Blue Bonnet Festival - April 2007

April is my favorite time of year in Texas because if it has rained enough the past winter we have lots of wild flowers. There is a nearby town, Ennis, that hosts a bluebonnet (the Texas State flower) festival every year. We had never been before but thought it would be fun to go out for it. It is just a small town but many of the locals have seeded their yards so that they have tons of flowers in their yards and the town itself has tons. They have maps taht you can follow that take you to the most densley flowered areas and people will just let you drive into their yards, they are so proud of them. We had a great time driving around and seeing all the beautiful flowers. And that night we got to go to the drive-in movies, it was so fun. They had a double feature of "Is It Done Yet?" (I think that's what it was called anyway) and "Blades of Glory". It was awesome. I hadn't been to a drive in since my first few years of college and it had been even longer for Ryan. We had a blast. I know after seeing all our flower pictures you are gonig to want to come visit us in April so you can get flower pictures too. We will have our guest room ready.

Northern California - March 2007

In March of 2007 we went on a tour of Northern California. We first flew in to San Francisco and stayed the night with my cousin Jessica and her husband Troy. We hadn't seen them since our wedding and it was so fun to visit with them. We spent the next day touring around downtown San Francisco. We took the public transportation to downtown, getting off at Union Square. I don’t remember what the significance of the place was, but it is basically this big plaza area, surrounded by a lot of high end stores (Macys, Saks, Neiman-Marcus, Tiffany’s, etc.) and hotels. to Fisherman’s Wharf. We first went to Pier 39, Ghiradelli Square, and China Town. More Chinese people live in Chinatown than anywhere else in the world except China. It was pretty fun. It reminded me of London, a lot of little shops lining the main street.

After San Francisco we headed into my mission (the California Santa Rosa mission - the BEST mission.) We stopped in Santa Rosa (my last area) and had dinner with one of the ladies I had taught there who had been baptised, Laurie Gavagan. It was so good to see her and I really enjoyed spending that time with her - and the food was great too.

After dinner we started heading up toward Eureka (my first area) and the Redwoods. It is a long drive so we stopped in Ukiah and spent the night then drove the rest of the way in the morning. Before heading in to Eureka, though, we went through Avenue of the Giants, on of the Redwood Forests up there. It is amazing! I went hiking there one p-day (preperation day) as a missionary and loved it. The trees can get incredibly tall (hence "Giants"), I think the tallest was 367 feet. We did several hikes but were slightly hindered because Ryan tore a ligament in his ankle the weekend before our trip playing basketball and so had to wear a boot.

We headed to Eureka then and stayed with my friends Ethan and Dani Flores. Ethan is the only person I taught on my mission that was found through tracting and was baptised. Dani is also a convert but didn't move to Eureka until after I was transfered out of the area. They are awesome. We had fun hanging out with them that night, playing games and catching up. The next day they had to work, so we headed on up to the Redwood National Forest on our own. As a missionary I had gone to Fern Canyon, which is gorgeous. Several movies have been filmed there including Jurrasic Park and the Ewok scene of Star Wars. I absolutely loved it and wanted to take Ryan there. But when we got up there we found out it was closed because of all teh rain that they had gotten there were too many landslides. (It was kind of funny though because I had alwasy told Ryan about how the weather was always overcast there - almost always in the 60s and just cold and grey and often rainy. The 3 days we were there were perfectly sunny and in the low 70s. It was so nice. And because we were there in March there were hardly any other people there so we almost never saw people on our hikes - it was perfect, totally ideal, except some roads were closed and we couldn't get to Fern Canyon which we had really wanted to do.) So we were pretty bumbed but we ended up going on some pretty cool other hikes and on this one that was somewhat similar to Fern Canyon and really I think just as pretty, but different.

After we were done hiking Ethan and Dani were also done working so we met them at Trinidad Beach (one of the beaches that I had gone to a lot as a missionary - I used to just sit on the beach and write letters - lucky missionary, huh.) Ryan and I had fun exploring the tide pools (something I hadn't done as a missionary) and we foudn tons of different colored star fish, which was pretty fun. We went to dinner and then enjoyed and evening of just haning out. It was good to spend time with them.

The next day we headed back south towards Middletown, my second area (I only had 3 areas) but on the way we stopped at Avenue of the Giants again and did some final hiking before leaving the beautiful area. It is just so incredibly beautiful, but not the easiest location to get to. But if you ever get the opportuinity to go we would highly recommend it. It is so peaceful to be amongst those big trees, and then you have the ferns down low - and if you go in March you ahve the place to yourself pretty much and it is amazing. You can really feel God there and are amazed by the magnitude of his creations.




Well once we tore ourselves away from the trees we made it to Middletown and to the home of Mike and Julie Wilson. Julie and their children were already members when I first arrived in Middletown as a missionary but Mike was not. Some people called him a "dry Mormon". He had been to church several times but had never gotten around to getting baptized. I was the lucky missionary that was able to teach him the discussions and commit him to baptism. They are awesome! They fed us dinner and let us stay with them and we had a great time visiting with them. They are just a great couple and I love them a lot. The next day was Sunday and so we went to church at the Middletown ward and it was so fun to see so many people that I loved so much. The ward had changed a lot, but there were still a lot of familiar faces. (When I was a missionary I got super sick for several months, and this was while I was in Middletown. I would have to stay in the homes of members many times while my companions - I was in a threesome - went out and worked. Because of this I got extra close to the members in this ward. I ended up having to go home from Middletown for awhile, and then I went back to Santa Rosa, which was my last area.)


After church we headed back to San Francisco so we could spend some more time with my cousin Jessica. We spent our time walking around Golden Gate park which was just a few blocks form her apartment. It was gorgeous and we really enjoyed just walking around and seeing everything and visiting. Jessica is just one of those people that you are always happy to be around because she is always happy and complimentary and makes you feel good about yourself. She is very smart and beautiful and I wish I lived closer to her so I could see her more often but it was really fun to spend that time with her. And we appreciated her being our tour guide of the park.

After awhile it was time for us to catch our flights so we had to say goodbye and head home. We had such a great time in California it was hard to leave, but all good things must come to an end.