Feliz Cumpleanios Joseph!!

Today was Joseph's first birthday and we went to his party. It was really fun! Joseph Padilla is the son of Johnny and Nerita Padilla. They are from the same town that Pastor is from in Peru and Brother Johnny actually taught Pastor in an institute class. Pastor was really excited to learn that they moved here. They've been here a few years now.
This is the birthday boy himself! Isn't he a doll?
The decor and some of the guests.























More of the guests and decor. You can see the asembly of food and cakes. Mmmm . . .


This is what our baby does at parties. And at church. And pretty much anywhere.

This is the group of ninios answering questions for a surprise!!
Of course the piniata! Poor little donkey was beat up by the time the kids were through with him.

Joseph beating up the donkey.
Pastor and a little boy named Spencer and the baby.

The yummy snacks.

All the Way From Canada

Pastor was not raised LDS. He and his family were introduced to the Gospel by missionaries in Peru. Jonathan Taylor is the missionary who actually baptized Pastor in Peru, something we will be ever grateful for.

Today, Jonathan and his family came from Canada and we met with them is Salt Lake to have lunch and walk around Temple Square. There was a bit of confusion with where to meet each other. Pastor thought we were supposed to meet them by the black pool (reflecting pool) when, really, they said the flag pole. LoL We did find each other eventually though.

This is Jonathan with Pastor and the baby. He was really sweet with Duane.
This is us with the Taylor family.

After we finally met up, we went to lunch the decided to go to tour the Beehive House. The Beehive House was built in 1854 and was home for Brigham Young when he served as Prophet and Governor in Utah.

This is the outside of the building.

And this is a bust of Brigham Young.


















There were so many detailed rooms in the house that I don't want to post all of them, so I'm going to post the ones I liked the most. First here are some pictures of us walking around the Beehive House and looking at some artifacts and clothing:

The first room that I liked was the School Room. How fun would it have been to sit at these little desks and learn in the house of the Prophet?

The Play Room is my absolute favorite. I love the tiny piano for little fingers, and the tea set is adorable!

I thought the Family Pantry was cute because of the two rocking chairs. One big one and one tiny one. Aww . . .

It was a very fun day with Jonathan and Jenny and crew. I wish we could hang out with them more, but it's a long drive to Canada.

These are some random carvings that I liked in the house. Isn't the detail spectacular?

The Host

I must say that this is my favorite book of Stephanie Meyer. I think it's my favorite of the year. I've never read anything like it and how she writes from two different angles at once is beyond me. Truly amazing!

Poem by Amelia Earhart

I came across this and was really struck by it. I didn't know that Amelia Earhart was a writer.
Here is the poem:

"Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear the sound of wings.

Nor can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul's dominion.
Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the resistless day,
And count it fair."

Randomness

This is the sunset from a few days ago, isn't it gorgeous? Can you see the little airplane taking off from the airport? LoL

My mom's dog, Rosie. I really like this dog, she's such a cutie. I hope I can find one just like her one day. :o)

Of course, this is my baby. You can tell that he thought about smiling for the camera and almost did. Close but no cigar right?

This is my baby boy all wrapped up for his nap. He sleeps really well when he's swaddled. Sometimes I let him sleep in the swing because he's so congested that I don't want to leave him on his back.

Flying Home and Deadly Sanctuary

Well, these are my books of the week. When I read, I usually go through about eight books all in one small period of time. Then it'll cool off for a few months. These are the books that I've read so far. I like to pick up my books at DI because I write in them. I know the library doesn't like it when you write in their books so I don't. I just usually look for some good looking books at DI.

Anyway, Flying Home was really good. I mean really, really good. I think it's my favorite of Rachel Ann Nunes so far. On the other hand, Deadly Sanctuary wasn't even worth the time. I actually threw it away. The story line was good but the author used the Lords name in vain quite a lot and that made it completely not worth it to me. It was even signed by the author and I still threw it away.

Simplicity of Life

A few weeks ago, the baby and I went to church. Pastor was working, so he couldn't come, but the baby and I dragged ourselves out of bed and went. In Sunday School, the class had a bit of a problem, there wasn't a teacher. Apparently there was a bit of confusion with the new teachers and no one prepared a lesson that day. Well, instead of a prepared class, Bishop Nelson got up and talked about his time in Africa. He's been working with some of the students at BYU to get power to the school houses. His lesson was one of power and I don't think there was a dry eye, at least not among the women, when we broke for Priesthood and Relief Society.

During one part of his lesson, he talked about how simple things were in the villages there. They didn't have TV or cell phones to consume their day. All they had was each other and that made me start thinking. Sometimes I wish for a society like that. Bishop Nelson said that their homes were built in a circle and in the middle of that circle was where everyone spent their days. Either doing chores or taking care of family, everyone sort of hung out in that yard area and everyone knew everyone else. Everyone knew the neighbors children and they helped raise each others kids. Bishop Nelson said that the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" was very alive there.

That made start thinking about all the things I have in my life that clutter it. We have a TV, Pastor moved it to our bedroom. It took a great deal of practice to fight the urge to not want to sit in front of it all day. Now I rarely think about it, but it still consumes a lot of time that could be better spent. We have this computer, we have a cell phone, we have a radio. These are wonderful things, but they sometimes get abused. What would it be like if everyone took their mind off of those things and their busy lives? The simplicity of life is something that seems to be lost to the turmoil of day to day life. Wouldn't it be nice to forget about all those things and devote more time to your family, to your friends? I'm sure there's a nice medium, but there doesn't seem to be enough people who have actually found it.

Bishop Nelson said it a lot better then I did, but it was a very touching lesson. How's that for not prepared?

More Pictures from Developed Film

Kiss kiss! LoL

My handsome husband, just chilling on my mom's front porch.

I think I might have surprised him when I took this picture. He is soo cute! I can't get over it.

Breaking Dawn

So I finished the last book in the Twilight saga. I was glad to read what happened to Bella Swan, but I sometime get nervous as a series of books will come out. I'm always afraid the author will have some sort of emergency and won't finish what they started. When I was waiting year by year for the next Harry Potter book to come out, I kept hoping that JK Rowling didn't pull a Douglas Adams and die as she was writing the last book.

But anyway, I did enjoy the book, just not as much as I thought I would. It was definitely different from the rest and there are quite a few things that pop up that I surely wasn't expecting. I really was expecting the Romeo and Juliet ending where Edward held out and wouldn't let the love of his life go through what he had to go through. Kind of like Tuck Everlasting. Even though the ending is sad, you're glad that Winnie made the decision she did. I can't say the same of this book. Like I said, I enjoyed it, but was expecting something completely different.

24th of July

These are some pics I just had developed from the 24th of July.
This first one is of my brother Paul and his friend Vicky.

And my brother again with the baby.

This is a picture of four generations. My grandma,

Betty Jo, my Mom, Dana, my sister, Clarissa and me (why do I look so ghastly pale?!), and baby Duane.



This is Gary holding the baby.

We all went to my moms house to celebrate by having some BBQ food and to watch the fireworks. The fireworks, coincidentally, were cancelled because of rain. We played Monopoly and had a good time indoors instead.

More Nghtmares

So I'm still having dreams. More like nightmares. I had one last night where Pastor and I were kidnapped and by the time we were finally released to go home, the baby didn't recognize us anymore and cried every time I held him. Is it normal to have dreams like this? I woke up crying because all I wanted was for my baby to know me, to know that I loved him and that was gone in the dream. I kept hugging Duane until I woke him up. Even now it haunts my memory. How would it be to lose the connection you have with your child? The thought makes me shudder.

Dress Shopping

My sister came to visit today. Her friend is getting married and they went dress shopping. I wanted to tag a long to see the dresses. I really love looking at dresses. Caitlin Frost is the one getting married and she's a tiny little thing. The dress she eventually picked out was really gorgeous. It was white with red trim, very her style. My sister is a bridesmaid so she got to try on dresses too. The colors of the wedding are red, black and white, so the bridesmaids get to wear red with black jackets. I thought the look was a classic one.

After we were done dress shopping, we went to Taco Bell for some lunch. The pair of us really love bean and cheese burritos. Duane didn't really care where we ate as long as he got to eat his bottle of formula.

When we got back, Pastor was on the computer, so I took a picture of him. Isn't he handsome?

Baby Duane wanted his picture taken as well and I love him in his dad's hat. My wittle munchkin!

Baby's Sad Face

This is the baby's sad face. I knew that I would be able to get a picture of it one day. On a scale of one to ten with ten being his sadest face ever and a one being normal, this is about a seven. He has sadder faces, but I will have to keep trying to get them. It's kind of hard to have the camera in your hand when the baby is sad because you never know . . .

This is a beautiful pink rose that Tammy gave me for my b-day.

Visiting the Eggetts

Saturday, Pastor and I went to visit Brother and Sister Eggett. They live in North Salt Lake. When Pastor first came here from Peru, he lived with them and they are actually the ones who sponsored his going to school here, along with Sister Rosemary.

They gave us dinner, hamburgers with fruit salad and grilled zucchini. The hamburgers were really delicious, right up there in the top ten most yummy hamburgers I've ever eaten. The Eggetts were very nice and hospitable. (There is a picture of them and Pastor and the baby in Pastor's blog)

This is the view from their back porch. Wouldn't it be something to wake up to a view like that every morning?

This next photo is one I shot on our way home. It had just stopped raining over yonder and the sun was bursting through the clouds.
And this is one I took as the sun was setting. I see lots of purple and blue mountains, but I very rarely see a pink one!