"It's so good to know that wherever you are, a Mom is with you in spirit and in love."

So I totally meant to do this post sooner, I said I would and it's not like I didn't have any time to do it last week...I just didn't. Oops. :) I guess I just have to have something to procrastinate in my life, it it's not school/homework, it's something else!

Anyway, now for catch up time. Last Sunday was Mother's Day of course! My first "official" one too I suppose. We spent the morning going back up to SLC to go to see "Music and the Spoken Word" with Mark's fam before they left. I just have to say once more, the MoTab is SO awesome! And the orchestra too. They're fabulous. It was especially cool on Sunday because, well first of all, it was a Mother's day special and then as a treat after the broadcast was over the choir and orchestra did one more song. The author David McCullough was there so in honor of him they performed "Battle Hymn of the Republic", which is one of THE most AMAZING songs to hear the MoTab and Orchestra perform...seriously...sends chills up your spine to hear it. They won a Grammy for it so you know it's gotta be good. :)

I was SO mad though because I wanted to record it on my camera, which I did bring and brought extra batteries cuz they died the day before I didn't want that to happen again, but this time I forgot my memory card! Argh!!! So annoying...I can't seem to go anywhere now without forgetting something. No one else had a camera either so I was kinda bummed out. So that's the reason for no pics this post.

Right after the performance we said good-bye to Mark's parents and headed back to Provo where we took a nice long nap (unfortunately it wasn't very fulfilling, these devil dogs across the street ruined it for us...stupid dogs), and just chilled for the rest of the day. Or at least I did. Mark had to catch up on homework since we were gone all weekend so I watched some movies, made dinner, and lazed around. Not a bad mother's day I suppose, the only one I haven't had any kids around to deal with too! :)

I do wish I could have been home though! I'm just glad I got to see my Momma that week, since I didn't get to on Mother's Day. I guess I was just jealous partly cuz they had a brunch for their meal and I love brunches! That's one thing I miss the most about being away from home, no Sunday Dinners with the fam! :( I did go and make some cinnamon rolls though to make up for it and make myself feel somewhat included in what the fam did. They were yummy too! :)

Well I guess that's all for Sunday. I have another post I'm going to work on for last week which includes pictures so be excited!!! :) I'll just end with a belated Mother's Day to everyone and a big I love you and I miss you SO much to my Momma!

I love to see the temple, I'm going there someday

Well first of all, sorry to all those that are not LDS because this is mostly about goings on in the church and such, so I'm sorry if you don't all understand how excited I am about some things I'm going to talk about. :)

Anyway, this weekend is our Church's General Conference which consists of two days (Saturday and Sunday) of sessions where the leaders of the Church speak to the members. There are two sessions each day which are two hours long. It happens two times a year, the first weekend of April and the first weekend of October. It is a very wonderful and uplifting time and I love it! I didn't appreciate it as much when I was younger but as I've gotten older it's become a very special time of the year and I love listening to the council our leaders give us. I especially love going to the actual conference center and listening to it in person. It's such an amazing experience to sit there with 21,000 people, over a hundred General Authorities of the Church and often the entire 360 person Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Needless to say, the new Conference Center is HUGE!!!!! (they say that it can fit two full size Boeing planes inside of it....holy crapt that's big!!!) It is an extremely AWESOME experience, let me tell you.

(yes, this IS actually a top view of the conference center, it has tons of plants and walkways on top of it and it's pretty fantastic!!!)

(isn't it awesome???)

This past weekend I actually got to go to the session of the Relief Society (our Church's organization for women) and be there at the conference Center filled entirely with women, except for the few GA's that spoke :) I went with my sister-in-law Amy and we had a great time!

Anyway, to sum that up...I LOVE Conference weekend! I was sitting here this morning watching the first session and the President of our Church, Thomas S. Monson, announced five new temples, which is always super exciting anyway (we currently have 128 in operation around the world and they are all magnificently BEAUTIFUL buildings!). Among these new five he announced a new temple in the greater Kansas City area of Missouri!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now being from Missouri, this is super, super, super exciting for me and my family. It is also exciting because of the historical significance of that area from the beginnings of the Church. I did find it quite interesting that they chose to say "the greater Kansas City area" instead of a specific location so right now I have no clue where it's actually gonna be but it's still exciting! It most likely will be in Farwest Missouri but it could be in Independence or Liberty as well so I can't wait to hear specifics! We're hoping they'll mention more when my family goes to their stake conference in two weeks. Currently my family has to drive a good 3 hours to the temple in St. Louis, which isn't really all that bad and it's a gorgeous temple, but one near Kansas City will definitely be closer!

(this is a picture from Farwest that my sister Annie took, her husband did landscaping stuff there for a while and they got to go up there quite a bit. There is really nothing around there, just lots and lots of gorgeous Missouri land!)

I have always loved our temples, everything about them is amazing. They are built with such care and are done with as much perfection as a building could be. I would love one day to just travel around the world and seeing these awesome buildings. Currently I have been to/seen in person the Nauvoo Temple, St. Louis Temple, Salt Lake Temple, Manti Temple, St. George Temple, Mt. Timpanagos Temple, Bountiful Temple, Oakland Temple, Mesa, AZ Temple, and the Birmingham, AL Temple. I think that's it, besides the ones I've just driven by like the Jordan River Temple. I love taking pictures of them though and am gathering quite a collection. Here are a few of them.

Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say right now, except I guess to say that I LOVE TEMPLES! I have had such wonderful amazing experiences there and am so eternally grateful for the blessings they bring to my life!

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter - Jack Benny

My husband is officially old today. Or that's what he thinks, I don't think he is at all. He's always been somewhat touchy on him being older than me, which I don't find a big deal at all, but he kinda does. I think it's funny. He's actually only 3 years and 5 months older than me. He just thinks it sounds like a bigger deal cuz right now I'm 21 and now he's 25. He's just a big goof though. I like to tease him a lot though, it's just too much fun. Like for example, one time when we were dating I told him that when he was a Senior in High School, I was a little Freshman. (or at least I think I was, I didn't really think that through the whole way, but it doesn't really matter anyway). He was somewhat taken aback by that one though, very funny. But I do love him and I don't always tease him that bad, I promise. Otherwise he would have ran away a long time ago. :) But he didn't, he learned to dish it back, quite well, and now we're happily married.

Anyway- I'm spending the morning working while he's lounging around at home watching Heroes. He worked hard this week so that he wouldn't have to do any homework today. I originally was working tonight but I got it switched so I could spend the rest of the day with him. We're going to have a fun filled day (after work) starting with Orange Julius smoothies (he got a coupon for a free one for his birthday) and then we're off to Sears to buy tools for him for work. Oh how exciting!!! :) Not really but it's getting me out of the house and inside somewhere, it's kind of really cloudy and windy today and looks like rain, which isn't too great cuz there's a BYU football game today. Anyway, tonight we're going to go out to eat at a BBQ place called Goodwood which I've heard to be quite delicous. The rest of the time is up to him, which he's not entirely that decisive so I have no clue what we're going to do.

Today is special not only because of Mark's birthday but it also Mark's the anniversary of our first date. Last year this week was homecoming week and my roommate Whit and I wanted to go to the Homecoming Spectacular which features music and dance groups and that year they had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. We knew no one was going to ask us to it so we decided to ask someone ourselves. So the day I was gonna ask Mark, I found out it was his birthday the day of the concert so I was kind of hesitant to ask him in case he was doing something else. So I found out he wasn't and I asked him when he was leaving my apartment that night and he said yes! I was quite excited, and very nervous because I don't ask guys out. So that was quite a big deal for me :) Apparently during our whole dating period, I came out of my shell quite a bit and actually flirted, which is not an easy thing for me to do. Whit made fun of me though and said that she was rubbing off on me (Whit definitely knows how to flirt, much better than me).

Anyway, Whit asked some guy in our ward and we all went together and it was really fun. Mark surprisingly likes concerts and such and was excited to go. I sure got a pretty awesome guy, he's not afraid to watch chick flicks and he likes classical music and going to concerts. Not a lot of guys do so I'm pretty happy with him :) (He took me to see the Utah Orchestra for my birthday up in SLC which was FABULOUS! We both loved it. We've also gone to the MoTab Christmas Concert and BYU's Christmas Around the World although he missed that because of work, lame!) Anyway again, the MoTab was awesome and the Orchestra was awesome and pretty much overall it was a fabulous night. After that he started asking me out and then the rest is history! I think things would have progressed a lot slower if I had waited for him to ask me out first. He's as shy as me when it comes to that. He said he was planning on asking me out but I just beat him to it I guess. But it all turned great and we are fantastically happy together. I'm just so glad that I have him in my life, he is a great strength to me and so supportive and is just an awesome guy.

(This pic is like the only pic I have from before we were married that's not an engagement. I actually like this one of me, which doesn't happen too often, but Mark had to go ruin in by being a dork and not smiling, he really does usually look happier than that when he's with me, I swear! :)

My mom and sisters actually just called me while I was writing this to get his number to call him to say Happy Birthday so I hope they don't do anything too drastic or embarrassing...I don't think he's altogether used to my family yet (he's only met them once, at the wedding) so that might take awhile. My sister Mellisa said that if he had been working they were going to call up his work and sing over the intercom...they would do it too... :) Crazy people but I love em'!!!

I guess all that's left to say is Happy Birthday Mark! I love you SO much!!!