13 Weeks and Counting...

Travel. I love traveling. But, traveling also makes me love & miss home.

Me & Jo just got back from one of our recent adventures in Orlando, Florida.

I was giving a presentation at a national conference and my hubby came along for moral support.

While we were in Florida, soaking up the .... rain, we had the chance to visit Disney's Epcot.

Epcot is a little different than most of the other Disney Parks. This place is made to be a taste of the nations in a sort of way. There aren't really any rides (and if there are they are very very slow moving Its-a-small-world-kinda rides) but there is a large lake in the middle of the park with different county sections around the perimeter. We visited places like: Mexico, Norway, China, Japan, Germany, Ireland, etc. In each country they had food, street performances, and of course shops. We also found out that in each country section they only hire people who come from that country, so it was neat to hear them speak their language to one another.

We had a great time!

There were also many weddings to attend to in STG the past couple weekends.

We were lucky to be able to attend Adam & Mollie Del Toro's Wedding as well as

Jordan's twin sister Megan & Mike's Wedding.

Both weddings were beautiful.

I need to give a little shout out to Janece (me ma in law) who does an amazing job at organizing and putting together weddings for her kids.

She honestly is super-mom.

In other news...

Jordan has been accepted to two different law schools with full-rides to both:

UNLV & Texas Tech

We are still waiting to hear about the Utah schools, but we are getting pretty excited about this next chapter in our lives.

Also, we have some baby news.

Me & Jo will be expecting a little baby Gardner in August.

We feel so blessed to be able to take part in this next adventure together.

Its also kinda crazy, Im making a human being. How crafty am I?

I know it seems like a kajillion people are pregnant right now,

(secretly we all made a pregnancy pact...)

but I love being able to share this experience with friends who are going through the same thing.

Life is good.

Missing...

In no particular order:

• My baby sister Aria
• St. George
• The Fam

• Carlyn Jade Waggoner
• Workin' at Little Professor for my momma
• Pine Valley

• My bf who I haven't seen in ages
• Workin' at the GV spa with Diana -oh so many adventures
• and the 8 am calls I use to get from Di on her morning route to perks

• Japan
• Toyoko Inn's continental breakfast (oh man I could eat miso soup and rice balls for breakfast everyday!)

• Jeffner!

• My HS bfs
• Softball with Kelso, the jimmy, aquabats, sleepovers

• White Pine Adventure with he hubs & McDonalds
• SUMMER

• Seeing these girls every day
• History with Annie and Whit - and whit b's longing for the TA

These people and my old adventures have been on my mind lately as I am stuck inside most days freezing my arse off in Logan. I've had some good times with some great people and I'm so grateful for it!

FLO-RIDA

Getting ready for this:

(National Association of Conservation Districts)

Representin' UTAH

Outta the Nation, three states were chosen to display their conservation accomplishments. The little ol' GIS water project I'm working on was chosen and so I'll be in FL in a couple weeks presenting the project.

Excited to be going to FL.

Not excited to be going without the hubs.

(update: Jo is coming now!!! Im so happy!)

Christmas

Oh Christmas, sometimes I wish you weren't so stressful.

3 Families in the same town = 3 Christmases.

I don't mean to complain, but it can all get overwhelming when you are trying to make it to everyones traditions and events and not make anyone upset during this merry holiday.

I think this year we were able to make it to everything but boy, I am pretty happy to be back in boring Logan in my little cinder block apt.

Just 10 days before Christmas me and Jo celebrated our 2 year anniversary. YAY!

This year we went to Disney and on a cruise. We had a blast!

After Christmas a we had a little get together with some friends from HS who were in town. I was so happy to see these ladies and it was great to catch up!

Japan in a Nutshell

Ohayo Gozimasu! Genki desu ka?
Ok. It is finally that time. I can't put this off much longer.
I wish I could just write a caption with every picture because most of them have interesting stories or explanations, and because i could just talk forever about this trip.
But...Im not going to.
A. Because my sister and my pictures combined equal roughly 600 pictures
B. It would probably start to get boring for some people
C. This would probably end up being the longest post in blogger history
D. I don't have the time or the finger energy
So.
Here, for my history and your enjoyment, is my Japan trip in a Nutshell.

PEOPLE

The faces of Japan. You know what I thought would be a rarity?
People wearing kimonos. Come to find out, its still pretty common.
You can see a couple people in this pic who are wearing their kimonos out-and-about.
The escalators are my favorite shots.
You will always find people in a line on the left side. No one, and I mean NO ONE will be standing on the right side. That is for walking.
We went out to eat almost every night with my dad's friends and clients. It was really fun to go out with them and practice some Japanese.

Oh the picture of the people sleeping on the sub is pretty funny. It happens all the time but it is amazing because they will wake up mere seconds before their stop.

FOOD

Just a few pictures of the food we ate. It took me a day to get use to it. But it was great.

It was also pretty sweet going to eat with my dad's clients and friends cause they spared no expense at taking us out. The first place my dad's clients took us a Chicken BBQ place that is NOTHING like a BBQ place in the US. I couldn't really eat it. The chicken wasn't really cooked all the way and they were dipping it in raw egg yolk. The salads were really good there though...The second day/place was were I ate gold for the first time. They had gold flakes on the tomatoes, cucumbers and eggs. Yum. We also had food on sticks that we dipped in oil. The food consisted of veggies, egg yolk, curry, yeast, and chicken gizzard. Very interesting but very good! The 3rd day/meal was shabu shabu with my dad's old friends from Nissan. It was sooo yummy. Shabu Shabu is really thin slices of raw meat that you dip in broth to cook it. I think that was my favorite. The 4th day/meal was with my dad's friends and potential clients from Nippon Alcohol. They took us to an organic restaurant. What was interesting here was the dessert. Ice cream: sesame seed, sweet potato, tofu flavored, etc. Yummy... they were actually good.. Speaking of tofu. We ate that stuff everyday with almost every meal. I got pretty use to it and kinda like it now.

PLACES

Tokyo

Imperial Palace

Hiroo (where the LDS temple is)

Harajuku

Odaiba

Ameyoko (old black market place for sweets)

Yokohama

Asakusa

Sensoji (oldest temple in Tokyo area)

JAPAN was fantastic. It was the best trip I've ever been on. I was so lucky to be able to go! and I can't wait to go again!!!

Anyone up for Japan 2010?

procrastination

It has been over a month since Ive been in Japan and still no post.

It is coming soon I promise.

Sweet Little Atticus

One of my BFs just had her baby!!

I am soooo excited for this little one.

Congrats Annie & Todd.

We miss you guys!

Can't wait to meet Baby Atticus!