Reunitation!

I finally got to see all of my Snow College friends!!! Shawnee is ready to have her baby boy and was having a baby shower, so we decided to have a slumber the night before! I have not seen them in a long time, so it was so exciting! I have not seen Maddie since before her mission! We all stayed at Jills house and talked and talked and talked :) We also went on a mission to find Twilight..don't worry, 8 red boxes and they were sold out! Thank goodness for Blockbuster!! I LOVE YOU GIRLS!!!

Road Trip!

Buff and I went to Arizona to visit her old school! It was a lot of driving but SO much fun! As you can see we got kind of bored in the car... :) We also stopped at the Hoover Dam which I have never been too! And we saw President Kimballs house where he grew up in...right there in the town of Thatcher! It was so hot there, and hard to come back to this crappy Utah weather!!!

When I got back to the good ol' USA my family took me to St. George! It was nice weather and so much fun! My niece Addie is getting so big, and she is so much fun to play with! All of the girls went to Vegas to shop, go to dinner, and go to the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!! It was so cool! What a good weekend with the fam :)

Welcome to the Jungle...

After Ecuador I had the opportunity to go to the Yachana Lodge in the Amazon! It was such a cool experience! We flew to Cokee in an airplane that was really small! We then took a jungle truck to the Napo river. While we were waiting for our canoe/boat I started feeding some monkeys and they jumped right on my shoulder! We got to go on many hikes through the jungle and saw many different Jungle animals!! Bats, tarantulas, the harpy eagle, dwarf camens, HUGE spiders, bats, hawks...etc. We also got to FLOAT DOWN THE RIVER! We were just floating with the paranas and anacondas...no big deal :) We went to the medicine man and got cleansed with tobacco and learned how to throw spears and shoot blow guns. The whole experience was the coolest thing I have ever been able to do!

I love Ecuador!

Hello everyone! Have no fear I am back to the blogging world! I just spend the past three months having the most wonderful time of my life! I was living in Cuenca, Ecuador working in many different orphanages! I fell in love all of these children and got very attached to quite a few of them! It was the hardest thing to leave them. This blog is a tribute to my babies! :) I love you! Oh and PLEASE...if you are even slightly interested in going to Ecuador to do this they are in need of volunteers! You would not regret it! Also, if you are looking for ways to help these orphans but don't know how, contact me! You can sponsor a child for only 30 dollars a month for a year! What a wonderful thing to do :)

Hola from Ecuador! To do a blog here takes FOREVER, because the internet is slow. I am going to do one for this first time, but if you want to see all of my pictures I put them all on facebook! There are a lot :) Ecuador is great...the whole traveling experience was not the best. I have never had so many delays or had to wait in such long lines in my life! My casa here in Ecuador isn't bad! I live with 16 girls, my Cuenca parents, and the head family is here visiting with their 4 kids. It is crazy, and there is always something going on! I work a lot in the orphanages and keep busy! I was pretty homesick at first, but I am starting to get the hang of it! It is hard because of the language barrier, but hopefully I will overcome that soon! I know enough words right now to get by, I just can't communicate like a normal person! There are a lot of hand gestures, thats for sure! I have about 10 weeks left...my first week is already done! This is me and my parents before I left on my way to Ecuador! The other picture is supposed to be of me and Tyler...but seriously it is hard to get the right picture because its all in Spanish! I don't even know the word for delete...so it is staying! The picture is of the sign that went on our doll...the Ecuador people burn a doll when it is New Years to burn old bad things that happened to them! We burned our ex's...and we wrote down bad habits we have and burned those too. It was an exciting night! I have never seen so many fireworks in my life! We were not allowed to go out on the town because it wasn't safe at all! But family and friends, I love you all and I am doing ok! It is scary and different than the US. I am happy to be here to help these children. I love working with the special kids...there are almost 20 that we are working with, and than the casas kids, cunas babies, OSSO babies, HML girls and ladies...and than a couple other orphanages that I have not been to. I will be putting my pictures on facebook from now on...so be ready!! :) Love you all!

We had two formal nights, and on the first one we did family pictures. Everybody was dressed in black, and it was so much fun to get all dressed up!

This is my cousin Jenny and I.

Sisters!

The family. We are so funny :)

There was a lot of entertainment going on throughout the whole trip! On the ship days we played all of the sports and was involved in everything that we could. We were soon known on the ship as 'Utah'! That is my family for you, always trying to be the center of attention! ;) Isn't it great.

Jonny and I were the team captains for 'The Quest'. We had to do all sorts of crazy things to win, and don't worry, we won GOLD! I never would have expected less out of us. Together, we shall never lose! It was kind of embarasses the things we had to do in order to achieve gold, because all family members were present including the Parentals. It was all worth it in the end, however. :)

I enjoyed hanging out with my cousin Ry Guy...USU forever...we went to the Jesters Club and danced with the black people, and we always had a grand time together!

When we got off the cruise ship we went back to Peurto Rico and went to some forts! They were really cool, and had really pretty views! This is my sweet grandparents, oh how I love them!

The cruise was an amazing vacation! I loved being with my family!!