Falling

Did some exploring this weekend along with a photoshoot as seen below. This is the first time I've actually experienced a true Fall and I'm loving it! Stumbled upon our first snow of the season up in the Targhee forest. The tree tops were frosted and the ground had a light layer of fresh snow...it was magical really. Too bad it can't stay like this for the rest of the year.

Identities and Geothermals

Studies from this week led me to some essential and wonderful truths on the eternal identities of men and women. Growing up, I had always considered myself a "tomboy". I wanted to play with the boys and get dirty and wear dragon t-shirts everyday. In today's world, and with different, less righteous parents, I probably would've been pushed to explore that opposite gender. To consider, since I preferred what were deemed "boy" tendencies and activities, that maybe I came here in the wrong body. That really, I was meant to be a boy. Children are even taught in schools today that there are hundreds of different types of genders and that, you should experiment to figure out which one fits you best. And that couldn't be more wrong.

We are all born with different likes, dislikes, tendencies and challenges here on earth. These include gender confusion and same-sex attraction. The adversary uses them to confuse and upset the plan that our Heavenly Father created for us. But we are blessed to know that gender is an essential characteristic of pre-mortal, mortal and eternal identity and purpose. It is rooted deeply inside of us and will dictate not only our own lives, but the lives of our spouses and children.

As a woman, femininity is part of my inner beauty. Possessing the virtue of femininity does not mean that you have to love playing dress up, wear makeup and adore the color pink. Every woman on earth possesses the innate virtue of femininity, it just presents itself in different ways.  It finds expression in your capacity to love, your spirituality, delicacy, radiance, sensitivity, creativity, charm, graciousness, gentleness, dignity, and quiet strength" (President James E. Faust).

I'm grateful for the knowledge that I have of this gospel and for the joy that I find in my divine nature. I'm grateful for a wonderful mother who taught me what a woman should be and for a father who respected and protected women.

West Thumb

Bighorn sheep at the elk refuge!

Took a day trip to Yellowstone last week and went the touristy route this time. We hit up every major geyser and geothermal and sat foreverr in a typical "bison jam." On our way home, we stopped by Jackson and reminisced about the good old trailer days.  And as fun as our time living in Jackson was , I'm so grateful for the house we live in now.

Empty Houses, Rainy Days, and Prophets of God

It's been a lonely few days at the house. Travis got called to work an overnight charter again from Friday to Monday which means I watched conference by myself. Luckily, I got to see him and spend the night with him two of the three nights by some chance. I'm so grateful for my husband and the things he does for me. I'm lucky to be his wife and to get to spend eternity with him. Eternity. Sometimes I don't think I fully comprehend or appreciate the beauty of that word.

I was studying some teachings that really stood out to me and touched my heart the other day and wanted to share them. We know that the family is central to the Father's plan, these words come straight from the Proclamation given to us by prophets and apostles over 20 years ago. Something that I never really put much thought into was the fact that we can only continue our families in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. Nowhere else will families exist. How crazy is that? That realization made me evaluate my life and the progress I was making. If I want to be with my family forever I need to make achieving celestial glory my highest priority.

That may seem like a lofty goal, but we can start small. Eternal families aren't constructed by grandiose deeds, they require consistent, daily affirmations of faith and love. They require striving and encouraging, praising and teaching. Repentance will be necessary and forgiveness a common practice. But with faith we will be able to qualify for all the blessings our Heavenly Father has in store for us, including eternal life with our families.

"Every major decision should be based on the effect it will have on a family to qualify for life with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ." - Henry B. Eyring

Rexie-burg

Week one of officially living in Rexburg has come and gone. And we've already had to turn on our heater....am I just a wimp or is it really that cold? (According to Travis I'm a wimp...but he never gets cold so his opinion doesn't count)
We got everything moved in thanks to Travis' father and his truck and trailer. Church is great, school is good(except for the annoying orientation stuff) and life is wonderful.
Travis had to go work tonight for Salt Lake Express. He has to stay overnight in Dubois since it's a charter. I considered driving there to hang out with him tomorrow before work but decided it wasn't really worth all the driving for the time. This is actually the first night since we've been married...8months...that we've slept apart from each other. Crazy to think about. I miss him. Hopefully he doesn't have too many overnight gigs. But at least he has a job, for that I'm thankful. 

Part 2:

Day 4: Waking up to grey skies was a wonderful surprise as the weather had previously forecasted no clouds all day. The drive through the Quinault Forest was one of the prettiest parts of our entire drive. Huge trees lining the road with low hanging fog...breathtaking. we stopped at Beach 3(yes that's literally what it's called) and walked around for a bit. I love the ocean. Then we made our way up the coast to the Hoh Rainforest. Don't get me wrong, the rainforest was amazing..it just didn't exactly match the pictures I had expected in my head. Sunny and very dry, not really what you would imagine a rainforest to look like. A stop at Tillamook was a must on our way to Aunt Carries house. And of course we had to get some ice cream. After the dessert break we finally made it to Portland where we met Amber with the key to Carrie and Ken's apartment(they were gone until the next night so we had the whole place to ourselves...good and bad).  Picked up some Thai Food for dinner and passed out in a nice comfy bed.

Day 5: First thing in the morning we headed to Multnomah Falls and Oneonta Gorge. By far one of the coolest hikes I've ever been on. You hike up a slot canyon, wade through water(freezing cold water) and a climb over huge log jams until you reach an amazing waterfall carved into the back of the gorge. The rest of the day was filled with relaxing and a mexican dinner out with Carrie and Ken. We visited for a while afterwards with Rachel and her husband and then began our drive towards California. After driving for a couple hours I fell asleep and not long after that Travis pulled off onto a random road and we ended up just sleeping in our car.



Day 6: Life is a Highway
After a mediocre night of sleep in the car, we were awakened by my phone at 5am. We figured we might as well start making our way to California since we had such a long day of driving ahead of us. It was suuuper foggy the first couple hours. We pulled off at one of the beaches along the highway to find a lighthouse but could barely see five feet in front of us..and we nearly were blown away by the wind! Needless to say we didn't make it to the lighthouse. After a few hours of driving I took a turn  at the wheel and let Travis get some more sleep. The first time in over 2000 miles that I've driven..He loves me.
After a quick lunch at Applebees we headed for the Redwoods. The trees were HUGE. Bigger than anything else we'd seen this trip and we'd seen a lot of trees. We drove a few scenic roads and hiked a cute little trail deep In the forest. On the trail we found three banana slugs! So cool. From there we made our way to San Francisco. Got to cross the golden gate bridge at night which was gorgeous(but expensive) and ended our night with a chicken nugget dinner and another sleepover in the car.


Day 7: Drove down the coast almost the entire way to Los Angeles. We stopped at channel islands National Park(the visitor center anyway since you can only access the islands by boat) bringing our national park count for the trip up to 5. Spent the day with Brandon, Travis' friend/roomate from Hawaii. For being an LA native, he didn't have very many non-touristy ideas of things for us to do. We walked the main boardwalk, hit up a ferris-wheel(at Travis' request), and ate dinner at panda express. Not bad, but nothing out of the ordinary. He did suggest a cool hike but it ended up being closed due to a wildfire nearby so that was a no go. After chatting with a couple of Brandon's friends for hours we decided to just spend the night at his place and leave in the morning. Next time we''ll definitely have to use the temple patron housing that's available. We didn't even think about using it.

Woke up to find some sweet elephant seals on the beach!

Day 8: The drive to San Diego was relatively short compared to the other legs of our journey. It was a nice change. We drove straight to the temple and decided to do a session there. The temple is gorgeous. And the terrarium...so cool. I'm grateful that we have so many temples and that we can attend them often.
Our stomachs were growling at us by the time we left the temple so we stopped at a little surf shop for sandwiches. Then we made our way to Cabrillo National Monument and lighthouse. Unfortunately we got there too late to explore the tide pools but the lighthouse and army bunkers were pretty cool to see. After some shopping and a dip in the hot tub at our hotel, we ate dinner at Travis' favorite childhood restaurant Filipis Pizza. I wasn't as impressed but it wasn't bad. We fed the rest of my pizza to some homeless guy's pets haha..at least it went somewhere.
Day 9: The drive back to AZ and home!!! Family dinner with the Stradlings and delicious food. 

Summer Road Trip: Part 1

Day 1: Jackson to Twin Falls. Spent the night at Terel and Rachael's new house. We ate at Sharis Pies with them and Gio that night around ten and laughed harder than I have in a long time. You know, the ugly crying laughter..

Day 2: Twin Falls to Olympia. We attempted to go to church that next morning with Rachael and Terel but showed up an hour early because it was stake conference that day so we just took off and headed to grandma's house. Made a stop in Boise to explore the State Capitol, which was sweet and another stop in Oregon for gas. I forgot to tell Travis that in Oregon you can't pump your own gas..and he told the gas attendant to go away haha.
Finally got to grandma's where we ate like kings. She and Ferrell had picked several gallons of blackberries and made all kinds of creations which included blackberry syrup over icecream for dessert🍧


Teaching grandma how to use the selfie stick..again haha.

Day 3: The next morning we woke up to the smell of blackberry pancakes. Grandma wanted to get an early start so we could make it to Hells Canyon. After a terrifying two hour drive we finally made it to hat point lookout. The views were definitely impressive but nothing like the grand canyon people compared it to. We had a late lunch with the grandparents then got back on the road making our way to Washington and Mount Ranier. Our main destination was The Grove of the Patriarchs. I think it's safe to say it was the prettiest place we'd been thus far. I wish we would have planned to spend more time there but unfortunately we had other plans. We decided to stop and get a cheap hotel in Olympia for the night instead of driving to Seattle. Worth it.

 

Twenty one.

Had an interesting night of sleep(or lack there-of)yesterday.. I would blame it on my sporadic sleep schedule but given the other factors that were present I think it's safe to say that wasn't the only cause. Travis and I had just returned from dinner and we were laying in bed when I heard some tapping noises by our door. At first I ignored them, thinking it was just my imagination. When I heard it again a little louder I asked Travis if he heard anything but he only confirmed again that I was imagining things. A few minutes passed by and I heard the noise again, only this time it was accompanied by squeaks...there was no imagining this time. Even Travis heard it. 

A mouse. 

Gross. After a few moments of silence we decided that it was probably just outside. But after hearing it again from what seemed to be underneath our closet and then underneath the sink we decided otherwise..which put me into a little bit of a panic-mode. How did a mouse get into our trailer and more importantly where is it?? I made Travis get up and look but after several minutes of failed findings he finally gave up and said it was probably under our floorboards and he would look for it tomorrow. Sick. So there is the number one reason why I didn't sleep last night. Number two...drunk Emily. I was finally starting to drift off, still trying to ignore the tapping sounds of the mouse around me, when Emily shows up, back from her night out. I'm not sure what exactly even happened but it involved lots of crying and yelling and loud noises. After about 15 minutes of that episode it quieted down again and I started to fall asleep again. And finally, number three. We had decided that night, to try sleeping on the "table" bed  instead of our actual mattress...not the greatest idea. It was softer than our mattress for sure but the cushions kept sliding out from underneath us..all night long. I don't know why we didn't just move onto our bed after them falling off so many times. Lazy. Nevertheless we survived the night. And as far as I can tell, the mouse is gone...

In other news..I'm now 21!!! Crazy.

My birthday went like this:

Sleepover at our house in Rexburg, Cap'n Crunch and Shrek, Denny's at midnight for breakfast(because hello, free birthday food), late night walks, a hike to Strawberry Lake, snack at taco time, ice cream in Afton, dinner at the noodle kitchen and a beautiful new winter jacket..courtesy of Travis. (Yes the day centered a lot on food but it was my birthday, you're supposed to eat good food.)
 It was the first time I've ever spent my birthday apart from Melissa so that was a little weird, but it was a great day overall. We'll probably hit up a bar or something together when I get to Arizona..maybe haha. Plus I got my own birthday song this year so that was a first!

Our time in Jackson is quickly coming to a close. And I'm so excited..a little sad too..but mostly excited for what lies ahead. The past week, we spent some time exploring some of the trails in the snake river canyon and found berries along the trail by the creek! Most of them were raspberries of different kinds with a few mystery berries that we decided weren't worth our time. We also had dinner with the boss and the Denhalters on Sunday. Mary made delicious Swiss food consisting of cheesy noodles, saucy meat, and fresh green beans. Delicious.