John 3:5

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,

 he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"

Temple recommend in hand, I marched right up to the doors and pronounced that they let me in, "or else!" Haha, I am kidding, but I was allowed to go into the temple to help with baptisms for the dead last night and it was a great experience. 

So many names. And along with the names so many different backgrounds... location and years. Every time I was baptized in place of someone I opened my water stained eyes and made an effort to read everything about that person before I was baptized in place of another. To add some humor to my baptism session I was baptized in place of someone with the last name "Wiener" :) Made that first visit even more unforgettable. I was also confirmed in place of someone named Hedvig, which is almost like Hedwig, which is an owl in good 'ol Harry Potter.

The inside is beautiful and immaculately clean. It just makes me that more excited to be able to enter into the temple one day with my husband and make that covenant with the big man above, the three of us. It really is THE HOUSE OF THE LORD here on earth. There is no other, more sacred location than a temple.  

With Love,

Brittney and my first visit inside the Redlands Temple

done and done.

So that thursday - sunday vacation flew by just like I knew it sadly would. It's that unexplainable feeling I get when I am away from home and it is just completely different. It's a break from what your everyday reality is and a dream of what your everyday reality could become in another place!

If you know me well, I am a sucker for walks. If there is outside nature to be seen, I am there. Luckily, Sam puts up with my walk obsession and he is a fan of outdoor activities as well. So I will let my pictures tell the tale :)

this tree caught my eye on our walk.

HP 7.2

limestone hill in springeville

Y: At the top

LOVE on the Y

me and kelli prepared to fall out of the raft and into the Provo river

cupcake party where I was able to walk out and smash a red velvet into Sams face

16 loaves of Grandma Sycamores bread for Patty

that long beautiful that turned not so beautiful road home

Needless to say, my trip was nothing less than great. Spending time with someone I care about a lot and always making more friends makes me a happy girl. Realizing that you have so much more to learn and see in this life time and taking full advantage of all the things we have been given. 

On the road again

I felt like a child all over again, tucking myself in to bed and putting myself to sleep. The only problem with that is that I am not a child again and my normal bedtime is around, oh, 12 or 1 o'clock! That needed to be fixed, especially the night of July 20th because July 21st I was leaving for Utah. Making that, on average, 9 hour drive from California, through Nevada and Las Vegas, fitting in about 30 minutes of Arizona and finally making an appearance in that oh so great mormon state.

Knowing my last minute self, I had gone through my clothes and just randomly thrown in things I normally wear and crossed my fingers that when I arrived they would randomly come together and make outfits. Waking up that thursday morning, I did my ritual of hitting snooze a couple times. After the feat of actually bringing up my body and pulling it out of bed, I went and picked up Katelyn and we were on that 15 freeway by 4:30 AM.

We made it to Vegas in record breaking time. Im not sure if it was the a little bit above average speed limit I was driving, or the fact that the freeway is a ghost town at the time of day. Either way, under 3 hours to Vegas is sensational. The only downfall was the sunrise had rays that were blinding my pupils as we were traveling in an east bound direction.

All in all, we made it there in 8 hours. No bumps in the road. Now that I think about it, there were some technical bumps in the road... running over a blown out tire. Ouch, that hurt my car a little bit. A baby rock cracking my window a tad. Luckily, those things can be fixed!

So as we pulled up to Kellis apartment, a wash of excitement and relief came over us as we got some of our stuff inside and was able to quit with the driving. Since Sam was still getting his education on, I took a nap and woke up to his face opening the bedroom door and trying to be sneaky...

...and thats where this Utah story trip begins.