Adventures in DC

We got here late on Monday night ... really late. And the next few days were spent getting our stuff unpacked and our apartment ready. We also got to spend some time with Michael, Michelle, Damon and Brixton, and Bowman, Stephanie and Rayna, which was so fun! We feel so blessed to live close to some family!

My internship started this past Thursday. And, again, I am working for Health Fitness Corporation stationed at Freddie Mac. So, I will be teaching fitness classes and doing some training...basically working in a gym. My first few days were just training stuff, none too exciting. But I did take a couple of classes and observed one of my work-mates do some personal training. The cool thing about working in a fitness center is that I get to take all sorts of cool classes for free! And then soon, hopefully, I'll get to start teaching some of my own. But that'll be in a little while, I'm sure.

Daniel doesn't start his internship til this week, so he has been doing little things around the house while I've been at work: arranging our apartment and cleaning up a bit, getting the tv set up... you know, manly things. He even made his own tv antenna! He looked up videos on Youtube about making your own antenna, and he just decided to do it! Look at how clever he is!
This is the first one he did. It's main part is made of a hat hanger that he found around here, and he just tied wires to it. This one worked just fine, but Daniel wanted to make a better one. So...


...this is his second one. We get about 25 stations from it, which I think is SO cool! We don't watch tv much anyway, so that's fine with us (there's nothing good on, anyway), and we saved 40 bucks! He's so clever!

Our Trip to DC -- Part III: More Nauvoo

Our second and final day in Nauvoo was as good as the first one. We kicked it off by going to church, attending an all missionary ward, with about 350 missionaries, that started at 8am. It was kind of fun to attend that ward, because the majority of members in it are all senior missionaries. They were all so kind and welcoming to us, as you could imagine. I think it would be awesome to serve a mission with Daniel in Nauvoo!! Maybe someday...




This is an old covered wagon at the end of the Trail of Hope (the road all of the saints walked down as they were leaving Nauvoo). The Trail of Hope is so cool, because on the side of the road, there are all these plaques with quotes from the early members of the church and their experiences leaving Nauvoo. How hard that must have been!


Daniel, on the banks of the Mississippi River. At the end of Trail of Hope.


These next few pictures are from the Old Nauvoo Cemetery, where a lot of the pioneer saints were buried. I loved it! It is now officially my favorite cemetery ever ... and I've been to a lot of different cemeteries. It's just so OLD! And it's hidden from view because it's back a ways in a grove of trees. It was so peaceful, because it was off the road, so there were no sounds of human activity anywhere, and right next to it, there was just a big field of nothing. You could clearly hear the birds and the bugs, and I loved it. As you could imagine, it had a special feeling about it, along with the rest of Nauvoo.






Daniel in front of the gunsmith's, .... I think.




Daniel in front of Brigham Young's house. Of course he had to get one of these!






At the Blacksmith's Shop, with a cute Sister Missionary.

Daniel got a really good deal on a really nice hotel, so this is where we stayed our last night before arriving in DC. It was way nice, but they charged an arm and a leg for breakfast! Lame! Luckily, we brought our own cereal and milk. :)


The bed was heavenly!

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.