Our Trip to DC -- Part II: Nauvoo, the Beautiful

Our very first stop on Saturday morning (after we slept in, of course) was Carthage. Somehow it seemed the more logical thing to do. We got our little tour of Carthage, watched a video of the Prophet Joseph, and took some awesome pictures.

We spent all of Saturday in Nauvoo. It was INCREDIBLE! We loved it so much! It was such a fun little detour we took on the way to DC. What a special spirit there is about that place, especially in remembering the sacrifices that those early saints made to follow the Savior.


Here, I am sitting next to the famous window in Carthage Jail, the one Joseph falls out of during his martyrdom.


The Sister missionary that gave us the tour was so cute, and she told us that you can look through the bullet-hole in the door and see the window, and that all everybody takes a picture something like this. I thought it turned out pretty cool!


Daniel, standing next the door to the bedroom where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed.


This is us standing next to the Mississippi River. Both days in Nauvoo we matched like you see in this picture; Saturday we both wore red, Sunday we both wore green-ish. That wasn't planned either day, I promise!


Daniel, in front of the Scoville Bakery. All of the stories the missionaries told about each family were amazing! Such faith the saints had in times of trouble! Brother Scoville opened this bakery in Nauvoo, and then, shortly before they were to leave for the west, his wife had twin girls, both of which died a few days later, and then the mother herself died shortly thereafter. Brother Scoville was left with, I believe, 2 children by himself to move across the country. And he did!! I think they all made it. How hard would that be ??


Daniel and I tried to take this picture, and it was accidentally on video. We have the funniest video of us trying to take a picture and then realizing it wasn't working like it should. I'll try to put it up.

Our Trip to DC -- Part I: The Nauvoo Temple

Daniel and I are on our way to D.C. for our summer internships and adventures. We decided that since it was already going to be a ridiculously long trip in the car, we would stop at some cool places along the way and make a trip of it. Yesterday, we drove ALL DAY LONG, through Eastern Utah, all of Wyoming, and half of Nebraska. Not exactly an exciting drive, if you ask me. Today, we drove most of the day, our final destination being Nauvoo, Illinois. We had scheduled an appointment with the Temple to do the last session, at 6pm, and we sped a little bit to make our deadline. ;) But, no tickets, ...yet!

The Nauvoo Temple is amazing! We felt so thrilled to be there! I've been to Nauvoo before, with my family 5 years ago. But now, I get to go into the Temple! It has a really special spirit about it, I think. Just knowing all of the sacrifice the saints went through to build their temple, and then having to leave it, following the prophet. It's just ... amazing, to me!


We are standing in front of the Temple here. I promise.

YEAY for Graduation!

So ... HOORAY!! I graduated over a week ago! This last semester was a real doosie. Super hard! I would say, probably my hardest semester. But I'm sure that a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was anticipating being done with school. But...I made it through and now I'm done!!

My parents came down for the event, and we had all sorts of fun. The ceremonies were really good; there were 2 separate ones, 2 different days. Commencement on Thursday, and Elder Christofferson spoke; Convocation on Friday, and it took 2 and 1/2 hours (yikes). It was so cool to be among those graduating, who put so much effort and hard work into their schooling. And it feels good to be done! I don't exactly know what to do with myself anymore.

Anyway, Daniel arranged to have professional pictures taken after graduation on Thursday. We have a friend and fellow ward member, Brandon McDaniel, who does some photography on the side. He is the one responsible for the beautiful pictures below.


Me and my Mom!

Me and Brigham!

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for being so supportive during my school years (all of them!), and for always believing so much in me! You are AWESOME!

HOORAY FOR ME!

The World is Our Playground

Much excitement is about to take place!

First of all, I'm graduating from BYU THIS WEEK!! Daniel and I are just finishing up finals this week, and then we will be free of school for a whole 4 months...well, I'm going to be free from school FOREVER! But I'll still have to think about school because Daniel will be studying all the time next year.

It is going to be a blast having both of my families in the area, all hanging out together, like we did about this time last year.

After Graduation and packing up our whole house, we're hittin' the road. Our plan is to just drive around the West Coast, hanging out with our families and basically just do things that we haven't been able to do because of school: Sleep in, read good books, play outside together, take bike rides, etc.

Our first stop will most likely be Pleasant Hill, to visit my sister Julie and her family. We haven't seen them since last summer, and I love them...so we are going to see them. Do we need a better excuse than that? I think not.

Next stop: Oregon. To see my family. Personally, I'm really excited to see the chickens. ...And my family too, I suppose.



Somewhere during our visit in Oregon/right when we come back to Utah, Daniel and I will be celebrating our One Year Anniversary! Exciting and crazy to think we've already been married a year. And we are still as much in love as we were a year ago.



After coming back to Utah, to hang out with Daniel's family for a little bit, we'll be heading to Washington, D.C., where we both have internships.

Lots of exciting things are coming up very soon, and we intend to make the most of them!!

General Conference and Really Bad Eggs

General Conference was AWESOME! Dan and I really enjoyed watching it together...something that hasn't happened since we first started dating. And we enjoyed spending time with friends and family that weekend too. During the first session of conference, we had Viktoria Johnson, Kathryn Smith, and Jimmy O'Donahue over for waffles and dying eggs. Yes...we dyed eggs during General Conference. And it was so much fun!!! I hadn't dyed eggs in a while. Dan's eggs were the best. Apparently, he's really clever and creative and artsy. Who knew?




You can see General Conference in the background!!


Daniel ... working his special magic with hard-boiled eggs!


These are my eggs.


And these are Daniel's eggs.


These are our prettiest two eggs. Daniel's is the cool spotty one. I just liked mine because it has pretty colors.

Happy Easter

Dear Family and Friends,

Since we've been at school, we have missed you (yes, even those of you that live close...school has prevented us from spending as much time as we would like). And I just wanted to take a minute and wish you a very Happy Easter in a week and let you know how much we love you! We are so grateful to have such wonderful people in our lives, and we feel very fortunate to know you, to love you and to be loved by you.

So, have a great week, have a wonderful Easter Sunday, hunt lots of eggs, and do a lot of thinking about the Savior.

We love you. Love,
The Holbrooks (Dan and Leslie)

Stand for the Family

 Last weekend, Daniel and I had a wonderful opportunity to attend a symposium on the family. I had signed up for it weeks before the actual event because I thought it looked interesting and very important. I completely forgot about it until three days before the event took place, but I was very excited and willing to drop everything (especially homework) to go to this thing.

The Stand for the Family Symposium was put on by a group of students at BYU, and it brought people from all over, attending it and participating in it. There were speakers from BYU and from other Universities and institutions. They talked a lot about the families and the different issues facing the family today: divorce, pornography, same-sex marriage, abortion. It was so worth attending! I learned so much about these things and about where different countries and states stand on these issue and about how we can help stem these trends. It was so exciting to me, because before, I knew about how wrong these issues can be, but my whole attitude was "live and let live", as long as it doesn't hurt me or my family. But now, I see how much of a problem it is, how much it affects me (even without me realizing it), and the great many problems they will create (and already do create) in society. I feel this great passion now to save the family and to stand for the family.

What a wonderful experience it was!