Montezuma Has a Castle and a Well!!

Summer Projects

I've been working on a few projects this summer. Just something to do with my time, you know. I've racked my brain all summer of things to do and these are just a couple of the things I came up with. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was making a quilt. Well I finished that (what an accomplishment for me!! I'll always remember the day I tackled the sewing machine, every time I hop into my newly covered bed!). I also made a cool bulletin board to put some of mine and Suzanne's pictures on for our new room at school. I feel very happy about the turn out on these two items that I wanted to post about them. My favorite part of the bulletin board was my idea to put the foreign coins on as the buttons. Yah, I thought I was pretty clever. So that's all I wanted to say...until next time. Hey, I've done pretty good about blogging this week! Keep it up Mary!

Photography Lessons for Mary

Annie and I have had some good times together this summer just hanging out. I like to go on her adventures that she puts together for her and her kids. Here are a couple of pictures that I was able to take on our photography adventures. On Tuesday we took a little hike up one of the South Mountain Trails and on Wednesday we went to take pictures of Red Mountain. They're nothing too great but I'm enjoying learning the art.

Let's Hear It For the Kiddies!

So I've been spending an awful lot of time with my nieces and nephews this summer...we've become quite...close, lets just say that. You just gotta love them even when they do scream and cry a lot. Those cute little smiles will pull you back in a heartbeat. So since many of you know of my recent bonding times I've been having with these cute little kiddios, I've decided to let you see what I'm dealing with here. Good times...let me tell ya, good times!



Cute little Mimi




Annie and I took Maren, Maile, Vance, and Mimi to the Mesa Children's Art Museum...








Here are the Triplets...little stinkpots!!










They get me every time!

This One's For You Becky and Suz

You just gotta love the random times that you have in the summer. Sometimes we run out of things to do and it's difficult thinking of something else to do. This is what me and my friends do. We like to take pictures. Mostly this is for them but you others who are not featured in these pictures can take a quick peek at our model shots if you would like. I sent them into Teen magazine and we are totally going to be on the front cover of their next edition.








You love them! I knew it!

The Game!!! Owwww!

K, I'm lame I know! I need to be a better blogger. Those words can only mean something if I decide to follow through with them though right? We'll see how that goes! I'm sure I'll be better once I'm back at school and away from the fam. So here a "game" that my mom posted a few weeks ago which she tagged me in and has been trying to get me to do it ever since and I think Jaymee tagged me in it too...so here it is Mom and Jaymee.

Rules:
Each player answers the questions themselves. At the end of the post the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment letting them know that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answers.

The Five
Ten years ago…
1. I was 9 years old
2. I was furthering my highly educated education at Franklin East Elementary School and just started a new school year with my favorite teacher Mrs. Lee
3. I made friends with some good girls named Julia Hollingsworth, Jordan Hatch, Noel Griffin, Lindsay Brock, and Amy Thompson...I'll never forget our good times we had together. GIRL POWER all the way!
4. I received the good penmanship award in my class...that was exciting
5. I got in trouble by a mom of a boy in my class because I called him on the phone for one of my girlfriends...I didn't even want to talk to him Gosh!

Five things on today’s “to do” list
1. Finish babysitting at my sister's house
2. Hang out with my old friend Cara from the best buddies club
3. Finish getting some recipes together for college (I have to cook for myself now dang!)
4. Go to my ward FHE
5. get myself educated before I leave for school

Five snacks I enjoy
1. chips and salsa all the way!!
2. fruit snacks/fruit roll ups/fruit leather...all under that category
3. Rice with milk and cinnamon sugar
4. smoothies...you think I would get sick of them working at Jamba Juice and everthing
5. A dang casadila

Five things I would do if I was a millionaire…
1. Honestly if I was a millionarie right now I wouldn't know what to do with it so I would save it for another day
2. If I was older I would buy a nice comfortable house for my family
3. make some kind of large church related donation
4. Maybe if I was old older I would go on a mish with my husband
5. I could use it to pay for my 21 year old mission coming up

Five places I have lived…
1. Mesa, AZ
2. Provo Utah
3. Afton, Wyoming
4. the math lab on BYU campus
5. Stardust Dance studio on Main and Val Vista (that's where we had our Light practices)

Lets see, what other people can I tag that have not been tagged yet? I TAG Becky Barney, Lanae Carmichael, Spencer Anapol, Kara Morris, and Michelle Stones. Take it away guys!!

I LIIIIIIIVE!

Don't worry people! I haven't died! I survived the Earthquake in China, I'm not going anywhere! Now that you know that I'm not dead, you probably think I'm the worst blogger ever. That very well may be true, but I'm here to redeem myself! I haven't let you people down! So I just decided I'm just going to start fresh and new. I'll update a little about the past couple of months, but I'm not really into sitting here for ages writing every single detail that has happened so I'll just give a brief overview and start new. Deal? Deal!!
Alright, here goes nothing...
So I got back from China about a month and a half ago. An opportunity of a lifetime? I'll say so! It came complete with an earthquake! How cool is that?! It was rockin'! Haha, get it Rockin'?! Okay maybe that wasn't one of my finest jokes, but it worked. Seriously though, I had a good time! Even with the earthquake! That didn't ruin my sense of fun. It did for a few days, but I got back on track once I left the city. I turned out okay in the end; no bumps of bruises. The people in the epicenter weren't as lucky as I was though. It was such a devistating destruction. So sad! A recent count has said that over 80,000 people have died from the earthquake. I will tell you that at the time the earthquake happened, I too was afraid of death, but we made it out a lot luckier than the people at the epicenter did. The area that I was in was a richer area, where the buildings were built a lot stronger than was at the epicenter. Our buildings were atleast built to withstand a 7.9 earthquake whereas at the epicenter the buildings collapsed within 5 seconds of the earthquake happening. It was a 8.0 earthquake and by the time it got to us (60 miles away) it was a 7.5. Pretty crazy stuff if you ask me! I can't believe I was there, and so close too! I loved the people there though! I've never met a kinder people before in my life! They are such good hosts. They are so thoughtful too! Seriously, it may be hard to think that a whole people could be like that, but it's true. It's just their culture. They are all so loving, kind, and caring. They are truly a Christ-like people. They are so ready for the gospel there. I loved my time there!!! Like I said, I could spend ages here telling my stories, but I don't want to be here forever and plus I think you guys might get a little board reading. Maybe I'll post later stories of my adventures in China.
So life here in the Mesa eh?? It's been good! I like being home, but it's getting harder and harder trying to find productive things to do with my time. I don't have a job so that's one time filler upper I have to find. Mostly I just spend my time doing things that I can help out with or perfect my talents and abilities with in any way shape or form. I babysit a lot for the fam, I made a quilt (which is almost done by the way and I'm super stoked to use it as my new bed spread at college; I think I'll forever be filled with accomplishment when I look at it b/c then I will remember the time I defeated the sewing machine and stuck with the job which I never have done before. I always leave sewing projects unfinished.), I play the piano a lot, read a lot (I first started reading a book about the second coming called "The Coming of Our Lord". Geez I wonder what got me thinking about the second coming?! It's really good though and I recommend it. My mom recommended it to me. I also got drug into the Twilight series by my mom and sisters. We are attending the Barnes and Nobles book opening party for the 4th book this Friday. What can I say, we are a bunch of junkies. I'm only a little bit more than half way through the first book right now, but it's definately my new frenzy right now.), I hang out with my friends a lot (they've recently hooked me on the "So you think you can Dance" episodes every Wednesday and Thursday and we watch them together), ummm and I do a bunch of other things too that I can't think of right now. I don't really want to boar you with anymore details, so I'll let it be for now. Now I'll just post some pictures from China because what would a blog be like without any pictures??? Well I'll fill you in some other time with my grand life story and hopefully I can keep up with this thing.

These photos are from the first city we visited where we had the earthquake, Chengdu. We were there for 2 1/2 weeks.

















































These pictures are from the second place we visited, Guiyang. We were there for 3 1/2 weeks.