Friday, April 13, 2012

General Conference Weekend

Wasn't General Conference amazing? I can never get enough of it. It always goes by way too quickly. We had a great time this weekend spending time with both families, and being spiritually renewed.

We began Saturday morning by watching the morning session at Chris and Heather's. Heather had some amazing cinnamon rolls that she got, that my is making my mouth water just thinking about them right now. In between the two sessions we went laser tagging at Trafalga. This activity is always a Curtis family favorite. Heather got a babysitter for the young kiddos and we all took off. (We missed Marty and Keri this weekend, while they were in St. George). 

Getting ready to tag it up. 
I still can't get over how funny it is to see my husband finish a game of laser tag drenched in sweat. He takes his laser tag very seriously, and does not mess around. :) 

My mom and i hung out during priesthood on Saturday night. We went and shopped around and just hung out. It was fun to spend time with her! 
After Brad got back from priesthood, we went to Matt and Mikelle's in provo, and hung out with some friends. We love them, and thanks to Mikelle i planned a good April Fool's joke on Bradley the next morning. 

Ora Gel on Bradley's toothbrush. Numbed his gums right up, the next morning. Best morning of my life!:)

We watched conference on Sunday at my parents house. I made some Banana Pancakes at my moms, and we just enjoyed the day together.

Mission Reunion

To start off our General Conference weekend, we decided to go to Bradley's mission reunion. It was good to see Brad's mission president along his his wife, President and Sister Henry. I actually had met them last year while we were dating, so it was fun to talk to them again. President Henry was the mission president for the first half of Brad's mission. He has some epic hair, that you can't really see in this picture. I just made Bradley promise that he wouldn't ever have hair like that. :)

The best part of the night is that we got to see Judd and Alli! We hardly get to see them with them living far away from us in Salt Lake.  Judd was an AP with Brad for the last part of their mission, and they are the best of friends. Judd and Alli got married just a few weeks after us, and we love them to death! 

Judd and Brad being weird.


Alli and i get along so well, because we have a mutual love and passion. Yogurtland. Since i have been married, i had yet to find another friend that understands how amazing this place is, until she came around. While we were at the reunion we begged our husband to take us here after, so we could enjoy some of this. So they did, and we were thrilled.
 The boys were making fun of us for wanting our picture, so they said they had to have a picture too. Poor Tim was alone, with Laina being in Hong Kong. 
We spent a long time at Yogurtland, mostly listening to Brad and Judd tell crazy stories, and talking about who knows what. We had a great time! So thankful for so many great friends.

Friday, April 6, 2012

General Young Womens Broadcast

Back in January, i was called to be a beehive advisor in our ward. I was super sad to be released from teaching sunday school with Brad, but my experience teaching this beehive class has been so fun so far! My mother is the Young Womens President in our ward, so we get the unique opportunity or serving together (kind of) for a while. Serving with her makes me realize more and more how incredible she is. It's amazing to go to church every week, and have at least 5 people tell you how amazing your mother is. Hopefully one day, i can be like her.

So, the young women in our stake had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of singing in the choir for the Young Womens Broadcast. They have been practicing for months, and have had an incredible experience doing so. A member from the young women general board go to each practice, and they had an incredible  fireside each time. During the practice, they really forced the girls to be spiritually prepared for this experience, and pray for the things they would like to see happen. The girls truly understood that the purpose was not to sing in the choir, but testifying to the world about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

My mom and I rode up to the conference center on Saturday. Along with the Parson's. The meeting was incredible. The music was incredible. And i think my mom and I cried through the whole thing. It was fun to be there surrounded by all the mother's, grandmothers, and leaders in our ward. As well as thousands and thousands and thousands other young women and their mothers.  


My favorite talk was THIS one 

And if you all haven't seen THIS video, you need to now. I still can't watch it without crying. Pretty much all of the girls they show in the choir at the end are in my ward. 

After the broadcast, we went to meet up with all the girls. They were all on a spiritual high. It's funny what the spirit can do to you. :)

Here is the sweet Harris family of girls
Kailey and Brooke
This is my one of my favorites of the Beehives, Kate. She is 12 years old, and is more mature than i am. I love her to pieces.
Me and mi mama. Isn't she lovely?
The most incredible part of this experience was this: The next day at church, was fast and testimony meeting. I'm not kidding, ALL of the testimonies born during this meeting were youth. NO moms and dads! (besides the Young Mens president at the very end). I have never seen that before. At first it was all the young women getting up and sharing their experience in the choir, but then all the young men got up and started bearing powerful testimonies too. It was so cool. We have an incredible ward!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

St. George

I'm so disappointed I hardly have any pictures of our little St. George get away. It was perfect. And we SOOOO enjoyed the time together to be wild, silly, spontaneous, and careless. We took off on Thursday morning, and came home Sunday. The weather was great Thursday, and Friday. But not so much Saturday. 
Thursday we got to the 'Hoopes Hotel' and unpacked the car. It was a perfect place for us to stay. Dan and Leann are soo generous and kind to let us stay there. We then got back in the car and headed to the shops. Brad's eyes got really big when he saw his favorite store of all time, The 'Eddie Bauer Outlet'. It's really funny how much he loves that store. We stocked up his summer clothing for the next ten years. And then to my favorite, the Gap outlet. And i got summer shirts. I forgot how fun it is to buy new clothes. :)
Thursday night we had the treat of meeting up with my dear friend Liz Starley and her family for dinner, and then on to Nielsen's Frozen Custard for some deliciousness we had never experienced before. I hadn't seen Liz, nor her family in a long time. We had a great time spending time with them.

Friday was the best day ever! Kenny and Heather came to meet us! We love them, and had a blast being crazy with them. They met us at Dixie Rock, and then we headed to Gunlock Reservoir. 

Brad and I on top of Dixie Rock
 Oh i forgot to mention, the air show was going on the weekend we were there. The 'Blue Angels' were flying around, and Brad was obsessed with them. It really was fun to watch, but Brad almost started crying cause he loved it so much. 
 Brad and I went to Gunlock last year and there was lots of water, and water falls for Bradley to jump off of. However, when we went there this time, there was no water! Just rocks. Kenny and Brad don't care, and find  these huge logs to throw off the big cliff. I still don't understand how they found that so thrilling. But whatever floats their boat.

Last year, with lots of water....
This year, with nothin....

 watching the logs fall. WOW MOM!
 Kenny decided to be bold and dive into the Reservoir. It is impossible to describe the temperature of this water. Freezing is an understatement. 
 But of course... he did it, and swore it wasn't that bad. (Liar)

That night, we enjoyed some in-n-out burger...and played some intense game of 'scatts.' (aka Scattergories). We had some good laughs at our crazy brains that night...which continued on to another intense game Saturday night. :) FYI, a Lion still IS an amphibian.

Saturday we woke up and did a windy hike in Snow Canyon. We found a rock that we wanted to hike to, and did it. We packed lunches and ate them on our rock. We then made a precious video, that i have yet to get my hands on. When i do, i will share it. Until then, it's a secret. We made it for my sweet father in law, Marty. He is gonna LOVE it! Saturday night, we just hung out some more with the Nielsens. Went to dinner, a little more shopping, dessert, and s'more scatts! 

It was definitely a perfect weekend! Thank you Kenny and Heather for joining us. :)

My Visitors

I cherished every day of Bradley's spring break. Why? Because he was a normal human, and had time to do normal human things. Like go on a bike rides in the middle of the day, and visit his wife at work. Here are my two best friends that came peddling in good old Lone Peak Dental. They even have twinner road bikes. How cool is that? They gave us some good entertainment, and even went to  buy me chicken nuggets at Wendy's. I don't know why i love those so much. But i do know why i love these two people so much!

What a fun surprise!

Disney on Ice

Our dear brother in law, Kenny, has a very talented sister, Kylee, that is a skater for Disney On Ice. Their tour was in Salt Lake City for about a week, and Kylee was able to get the whole Curtis clan tickets for a show. They did a Toy Story 3 show, and it was thoroughly entertaining. I felt like i could act like a child, and i loved it. It was fun to watch Kylee, and all of the amazing skaters. They should all be in the Olympics. They are that good. 

After the show, Kylee let us go back stage and meet Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Brad and I were kind of terrified of them up close. Woody just rubbed us the wrong way, but we got a good laugh out of it. They are incredibly talented!

I made Brad get our own picture with them. Brad has been practicing his Woody pose, like this character, and is getting pretty good at it. :) 
Thank you to Buzz, Woody, Jessie, Andy, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky, Rex, Barbie, Ken, and Pryson. :)
And most of all to Marty and Keri...because they carry out (and fund) all of these family memories. 

Happy Birthday Timmy!

(I hate the feeling of being super behind on blogging. It's so overwhelming. Baby steps. Here we go.)

Happy Birthday to our one and only Timmy! We celebrated his birthday early March, and are so happy we had a day all about him. Tim is Brad's best friend, and he is my child. I stress about him more than i stress about my own life. We love him! Brad and Laina planned a little surprise dinner for him at Texas Roadhouse the night of his birthday. The wonderful Brad and Dani Brown family joined us. It's always a good day when we get to see them too. 
 We warned Tim and Laina that there was a double flash on our camera, so to wait until they both go off before they move. It still took them 3 tries to believe us.
Take 1
 Take 2
 3rd time is always the charm!
 Since we were in Orem that night, i made Bradley take me to Yogurtland. My favorite place ever. It had been way too long since Double Chocolate Mint Cookie and i had been united. 
 Tim being weird, and enjoying his birthday treat.
 We don't really know these people. Well, we do. We love Dallen, but we don't really know the girl that was with him. They tagged along, and we were taking pictures of everyone else...so i felt like i needed to take a picture of them too. Haven't seen them since....but they're cute!