Family Photos... Gong Show...

So mom decided that she wanted to take family pictures considering that Ian is leaving on his mission to St George in a couple of weeks. Our family just doesn't take these kinds of things seriously... Observe...

My Dads favourite thing...

hehehe.....

This one perfectly describes our relationship as siblings.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!!!! My little brother looks so adorably alone. Haha!!!!!


Best. Family. Ever.

So Many Adventures!!!

This has easily been one of the best summers of my life. The following events are reasons why.

A) Ray bought me flowers for absolutely no reason. This has never actually happened to me before with anyone so this was a momentous occasion!! Aren't they pretty?!??

I thought he did an amazing job picking them out. Bright and awesome. Totally perfect. Best husband ever. :D

B) First husband/wife vacation just because we can. We went to Cardston and Waterton and had an amazing time.

We stayed at this amazing little bed and breakfast, which was right in Cardston, and ran by this older couple who were originally from Holland. The place was called the Shalom B&B and had tons of character. There was all sorts of stuff from Holland used as decorations, so there was always something interesting to look at. Regrettably, we didn't take ANY pictures of that place.. I was kinda bummed when I realized that after we got home.. But such is life I guess... We loved our stay there though. The people that ran it were so kind and welcoming, and the breakfasts were awesome. I was slightly confused though. I was kind of expecting them to be Jewish, considering the name of the place, so I wasn't surprised to see a star of David on their front door. When we went inside, however, there were crosses and references to the Bible and Christ. haha! I didn't ever ask them about it though... and neither did Ray. When I think about it though, I'm surprised we never asked... Well... More surprised that Ray never asked. haha! What's more puzzling is how they ended up in Cardston since it's 98% populated by LDS people. The Alberta Temple is in the centre of the town. It was the 6th temple ever built! So there's this random Dutch couple that live there that are both Christian and Jewish???... Sure... I guess it will just remain a mystery. ... Unless we go back one day. We totally would. It was a great experience.

We went to the temple together, which ended up being an adventure in itself! Ray forgot to bring his Church clothes, so we went on a quest to find him some preferably cheap clothes. We went to the Distribution Centre, and thankfully, the nice lady there directed us to this little thrift store in town, where Ray lucked out and found the only pair of dress pants that were smaller than a 42" waist. hahahaha.... They were $2.00. Then he bought a 50 cent tie and a 50 cent belt, and we were good to go. Despite forgetting his Church clothes, Ray remembered his dress shoes, so we didn't need to worry about that. haha. I love my husband. This is an old picture of the Cardston temple around Christmas time last year. It still looks the same though. :D haha.

Ray and I went for a walk around the temple, and thought we saw a couple owls sitting in between those pillar looking things, but we didn't really believe that that's what we were seeing. So we asked a couple of girls that were chatting together on the grass if those were actually owls we were seeing. Apparently they were real, and there were actually 4 of them, and they all live on the temple. I guess a few year ago, there was a major bird problem at the temple. Tons of birds were just crowding onto the temple pooping on it and causing some significant outer damage. Members prayed for guidance on how to fix this problem, and then one day these 4 owls show up, scaring away all the birds, totally fixing the problem! The owls now stay there there, like it's their home. haha!! Such a cool story! So every time we went past the temple that weekend we looked for the owls, and they were always there, night and day!

I took Ray to Waterton for the first time too. We saw lots of awesome things.

bears...

Momma and baby bears...

Cool looking deer...errr... Those are deer right??.. :S

awesome rushing waters!!!

... which were actually pretty scary. There was quite the drop from where I was standing. I was being brave.

and pretty flowers/mountains/nature.

We also decided to venture into the town of Waterton, and found a place that rented out super sweet cruiser bikes for only $6.00 and hour! We capitalized on this opportunity.

It's pretty clear we had some fun. The picture of Ray in front of the waterfall pointing the other way from it is hilarious to me. Seriously! I crack up every time I see it! And with signs telling you to watch out for angry, kicking deer... Well that's just a moment screaming to be documented. haha!

okay... moving on...

C) Revisiting my teenage years... The Backstreet Boys concert!

I'd known about the concert coming for a long time, but I never planned on going because tickets were stupid expensive. Then one fateful night, I was on facebook and someone had posted that they got $25 tickets!! She explained how to do it, and I was immediately filled with a need to partake in the awesomeness thereof. It was obvious that Ray wasn't gonna go, so I sent out a mass text asking for people interested in going with me, and got 4 other girls! WOOT!!!! So I bought 5 tickets, two days before the show and we were off! The teeny bopper screams came back to me like it was 10 years ago. I was surprised, but well pleased. haha.. It was just like the old days.. Except that there were only 4 of them, not 5. I guess the oldest one, Kevin, decided that being 40 years old meant that he no longer qualified to be a Backstreet "Boy" anymore. Fine by me. I didn't let that damper my night of awesomeness. haha...

I had so much fun. I almost lost my voice... It was totally worth it. And as cheesy as it sounds... it made me so much more grateful to be able to come home to Ray. He's so much hotter than Nick Carter. haha!!! I'm also way more in love with Ray than I ever was with Nick Carter. hahahahahaha.

D) Calgary Zoo with Ray and my little brother Ian.

This adventure actually has two parts. Half way to Calgary, we stopped to get donuts because Ian wanted to stock up. He got the donuts, we went back to the car, and somehow the subject of Ian's ear blackheads came up. haha!! Don't judge me!! Ian gets these incredibly huge blackheads inside his ear, and since he can't see them, he has to get someone else to get rid of them. Yes it's gross, but its so fascinating!! They're huge!!! See???

So in this picture, we had already gotten one, which is why there's the bleeding, but there was still this other one that we could NOT get out! It was so frustrating and it was hurting him so bad. haha.. We took a picture of it to show him how awesome those things are. haha. Yes.. We're sick.. But seriously!!! Aren't zits fascinating?? Secretly inside I'm sure we all get a sick sense of satisfaction when you pop good ones right?? haha... Okay... Anyways.. This is me trying to get these blackheads out.

It was Ian's idea to get the pen. You squeeze the blackhead out with the hole in the end of the clicky pen and it gets all the stuff out. It's amazing.

Part 2. The Zoo!

They renovated the dinosaur part and now it's incredible. The dinosaurs move and roar and breathe. Woot!!! So exciting!

E) Longboarding Downhill Race

This was mostly for Ray's amusement, but I thought it was pretty exciting too. These kids were in full leather suits with helmets and everything! We watched most of it at a corner where there was a lot of crashing and falling. I was entertained. But there was also some pretty wicked skill too!

Summary...

BEST SUMMER EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday Thoughts

This Sunday was pretty awesome and I had a lot of thoughts when we were in Church.

Thoughts during Sacrament Meeting... I really really really love Ray. We laughed a lot and while it might have been borderline irreverent, it was awesome. Ray was taking some notes for his Sunday School lesson, and just to be playful I hit his arm totally made him mess up. So he retaliated by writing on my hand, but he wrote "I love Ray" which surprised me because I was totally expecting something opposite. haha. I bumped his arm again, with the same awesome result, so he again wrote on my hand, this time drawing an arrow from his previous message up to my ring. haha. It was great to laugh with him so much.

Sunday School was pretty eye opening. Ray's calling in the ward is the Sunday School teacher for the 14-17 year olds. Today he taught for the first time today, and I wanted to check it out, so I went with him. The lesson Ray taught was really good, but the kids weren't necessarily responding the way Ray or I were expecting. So that got me to thinking about why they weren't terribly interested in it. I thought back to when I was a 16 year old, and I realized that when I was that age, I didn't really care to much either. The only way I did get really excited was when I had a fun teacher. That's not to say Ray's not a fun teacher, because he totally is. But he's also got the fact that he's replacing a teacher those kids already loved, so that's hard for them. The challenge will be building a relationship of trust both ways. Those kids are still finding their testimonies. They probably haven't really had any significant spiritually impacting moments in their lives yet. I know when I was 16, I'd hear people tell these intense stories of when they knew that Heavenly Father was aware of them, but I hadn't had any yet, so I couldn't relate because I felt they were preaching to me and not helping me experience that because they were too set on finishing the lesson, therefore the personal touch and motivation to find what they had was almost lost. 14-17 is an interesting age... You want so bad to be your own individual, but you are so influenced by those around you, and they're polar opposites. Do you follow your family's example and risk being a total outcast, or do you fall into the temptations of those their age and risk losing yourself, but not understanding that that's the result of that path... What a terrible decision to have to make...

After Church, Ray and I talked about it, and I told him all these thoughts I was having during his class, and I emphasized that in the end, all they need him to be is their friend. That way, they'll take something home from his lessons, and not go because they have to, but because they really want to. It's just a matter of building that friendship, and that's really up to him to figure out how to do because he's the teacher and definitely has the discernment to be able to know the best way to do that. Ray has the potential to help those kids really discover their testimony, and start making pivotal decisions that will shape who they will be for the rest of their lives. The responsibility and potential that he has with those kids is huge. I know that he will be able to work it out with them. It may take a while for them to like him enough that they enjoy going to class, but Ray is the type of person that makes an impact in the lives of those around him. He figures it out. I'm excited to see the progression of both Ray in his teaching, and the students in their spiritual desires. It will be a challenge, because Ray is used to teaching adults, who don't necessarily need to be befriended or even really entertained by the teacher. Ray has a way of teaching that draws people in, which is incredible. But when you change the audience, the need to adjust the teaching method becomes apparent. He's gonna grow so much from this calling. He already loves teaching, and I think this is gonna get him even more pumped to keep teaching as his life progresses. I wonder what this calling is preparing him to be in the future...

So the experience from Sacrament meeting to Sunday School was night and day. Playful to thoughtful. The transition to Relief Society was no less shocking.

One of the young married women in the ward was asked last minute to teach this lesson from a Conference talk, and before RS started I was talking to her and she expressed that she was nervous about it. The usual pre-teaching jitters I guess. She did a great job though, but the lesson took a spin that she was just not expecting and I had never really experienced before. The lesson was about pain and not becoming bitter towards God for things going wrong in our lives. I guess that it was a super sensitive subject because there were 20 minutes straight of comments and the teacher just stood there listening... haha... But it appeared as if there was a lot of pain that each of those women had experienced, and they had all had really strong experiences that kept them facing in the right direction despite how terribly their life had fallen apart. I know for me, those types of experiences are some of the strongest I have to look back on. They're truly defining spiritual moments. So there were the women in the RS that have had those experiences, and so passionately shared what they learned first hand what they knew to be true. They had to go through the terrible bitterness of the trial, but the came out of it as stronger women. The natural result of that is to share those experiences to help others find motivation to make it through their trials too. So of course there were the few women that haven't necessarily had the testimony building experiences therefore lacking the ability to understand truly what those women were so passionate about, and how they could possibly be forgiving of people that have hurt them so badly, or have lived through trials that came about by means that were out of their control. The passion was clearly there, and I think that it really was positive, but slightly out of control. It was kind of comforting to know how strong the majority of these woman have become because of their trials, but it was strange to recognize how much collective pain the women in our Relief Society have gone through. I guess it also made me realize how much life I still have to live. Just like in Sunday School, how I was wondering the potential that Ray has in his life, my experience in RS made me think of my own potential about who I will become in my life.

Such a reflective day. I really appreciated it. My life has barely even started, but I'm excited to see where my experiences take me and my family.

My Husband and His Art

As previously mentioned, my husband is quite talented when it comes to artsy stuff. It's been his dream to make a living off of it, and this is where I shamelessly promote what he does. haha...

His whole goal is to put his art up online, and have business cards not only to give people his contact info, but also directing them to a site where they can see what he's done. So his site is http://maxemis.blogspot.com.

And also I must state that I'm way excited for him to get this going. I've never seen him so excited to draw and come up with designs he's never done before. He's got the people skills to make the necessary connections and the drive to make it work. Here's to Ray for getting this started!

By the way... I saw this particular piece of art for the first time while I was on my mission. Ray drew this for one of my companions and when I saw it, my thought was "oh the hot Elder!". Fast forward two years later, when I was talking to him for the first time since my first transfer, THIS is what I remembered that brought all the puzzle pieces together and I remembered who this Elder Whitcomb was that started talking to me randomly via text message. Thank you graffiti. You brought us together again. Anywho... Continuing on with the husband bragging.