I Love To See the Temple...

Yesterday Darren and I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the second dedicatory session of the Gila Valley Arizona Temple!

The temple is actually almost 3 hours away, so we were in attendance via our stake center. All of the stakes in Arizona and one stake in New Mexico had their regular Sunday meetings cancelled so they could have the opportunity to attend at their local meetinghouse.

Darren and I had both previously watched dedication sessions for other temples, so we pretty much knew what to expect. It was a great experience none the less. President Monson was presiding, with Elder Eyring and Elder Holland accompanying him. It was much more casual setting than General Conference, and there were a few slip-ups that made me love these men even more.

Elder Eyring spoke and then was about to turn the time over to the choir when he said, "Wait, they've already done that." And then preceeded to say it was better to hear from our Prophet then the choir, then apologized to the choir and told them that they sounded great and he didn't mean to sound like they were bad. We all got a good laugh.

President Monson was in fine form as well. He started off telling the congregation that he was feeling emotional today. And then said, "I must have inherited it from my mother." He got quite a few laughs throughout his talk, and then finished up and turned to sit down. He quickly came back to the pulpit and said, "My counselor has reminded me that I'm supposed to give the dedicatory prayer." He is a great man, and I feel lucky to have been able to listen to him in such a special setting.

I was reminded throughout the session of the importance of temple attendance, and wish Darren and I had taken greater advantage of having one so close during our time here in Mesa. We made it almost every month, but we could have gone more frequently. Hopefully we can find time over the summer to make the trip out to Oakland, or maybe even up to Sacramento.

Countdown: 4

Minor Surgery

So, it all started last summer...On random occasions my car would overheat dramatically and then drop to normal temperature in a matter of minutes. This didn't happen every time the car was running, but often enough that it worried me. Well, summer ended and so did that problem. Well, that is until we were 30 minutes outside Phoenix late Sunday night on our way back from California. Chuck, as we affectionately call our car, started to overheat, but right when it would get near the top, the temperature would drop back down to normal. We pulled over, but couldn't see anything obviously wrong, so we drove the last hour back to our apartment with the windows down and the heater all the way up. Not fun.

I rememberd that my uncle and grandfather had pretty much decided it was a thermostat problem and got the part to fix it, but then the problem stopped. Darren called his dad to see what he thought, and he quickly agreed that it was most likely the thermostat. Darren and I talked about it and decided that we should probably fix the problem before we drive another 11 hours back to California this coming weekend and risk more overheating. We headed over to our local AutoZone on Tuesday and bought a new thermostat and borrowed tools from our Elders Quorum president and got to work this morning.

It took us almost 2 1/2 hours to get everything taken apart and drained before we could even get to the thermostat, and then less than an hour to switch it out and then put everything back together. Darren and I felt very accomplished though when we turned on the car, let it run and nothing leaked!

We were both filthy afterwards, and these pictures don't even do it justice. The true test will be this Friday when we drive back to California. Think positive!

Whitey Man Biters

This past weekend Darren and I had the opportunity to go home to Hughson/Salida for his brother Josh's wedding. We wanted to maximize our time there, so we left about 4:00pm on Wednesday right after Darren got home from teaching. It was a long night, but we finally rolled into Hughson about 3:30am on Thursday. We slept for a few hours and then headed up to Salida to help get everything ready for the wedding.

While we were there, Darren got something fun in the mail:

He is now a college graduate! His diploma from BYU-Idaho arrived at the perfect time :)

Throughout Thursday and Friday we helped make jellos, put together silverware, and prep a ton of other food for Josh and Rae's luncheon and reception on Saturday. Friday evening we were able to get away for a little bit and got to go see our nephew Justin's t-ball game!

He was so cute and played so well. I loved being able to chat with Sheila and watch little Jordan run around.

We have definitely missed both of these boys way too much and are excited to be closer to them for the summer!

Saturday rolled around pretty quickly and the wedding was beautiful. I, of course, forgot my camera back in Salida so I have no pictures of any of Saturday's events, but hopefully I can steal some from my mother-in-law when we move back. We're excited to have Rae in the family and know she and Josh are perfect for eachother. The highlight of the whole trip (besides the wedding) was Saturday night, by far. We headed over to Jeff and Sheila's (Darren's brother and sister-in-law) with his brother Eric, his wife Jenny and their cousins Johnny, Brittany and Dianna. We played Balderdash and laughed until most of us were crying. I must have been way too tired, because I actually told Johnny to "sit on a pin" after he said something about my name. It was so fun though and we have some good memories now.

Darren had to teach again on Monday, so we left about 11:30am on Sunday and got back into Mesa about 10:30, after some mild car trouble. Boy will I be glad to have my uncle the mechanic close by when we're back in California...

Countdown: 10 days

The End is Near

As our time here in Arizona is quickly winding down, I thought I'd take a minute to think about the things that we'll miss, and won't miss, from our time here.

What we will miss

First, I'll definitely miss our ward. They call themselves "The Happiest Ward in the Universe". And I'm pretty sure that's true. While we didn't really get to know anyone extremely well, our ward was very welcoming and provided me with the opportunity to work in nursery, and realize that we can wait a little longer to have kids :)

Secondly, I'll miss the pudgy little kid in our complex that runs around every day without a shirt on. Just yesterday he had a squirt gun and was shooting water into an apartment across the way from us. The lady inside yelled at him to stop, so he went to the apartment next door and banged on the door and yelled "Open your door!" When they did, he pointed his squirt gun inside and started shooting.

Third, Darren will miss easy access to the Giants during Spring Training.

What we won't miss

First, I will be glad to be away from our stinky little pests, also known as bed bugs. The situation has been extremely good this past week, but I'll feel much better when we're out of here.

Second, I will be glad to be away from 95+ degree weather for at least a little while. 99 at the beginning of May is a little to early for my taste.

Lastly, I won't miss our crazy apartment. Once I think things are under control, something else happens, and I just laugh. Just yesterday I emptied our dishwasher to find our dishes looking like this:

Please note, those white-ish glasses are supposed to be clear, and that silverware usually has all black handles. We have no clue what is going on, so we've decided to revert back to manual dishwashing until we leave, which I actually enjoy right now.

Make no mistake, I am so grateful for the opportunity that Darren and I have had to be in Mesa for the past four and a half months. Our marriage has been strengthened, and we have learned more about ourselves in the process. I know in the years to come we will look back on this time with fondness, and I'm excited for that.

Countdown: 23

Ghetto Superstars

The weather this weekend was amazing (high 70's), so Darren decided earlier in the week that we needed to take advantage of it while we still could. In March when Johnny and Uncle Andy were here we were supposed to go on a hike with them, but didn't make it. We thought this weekend we could try it out.

We decided to get our grocery shopping done on Friday after Darren got home from school, so we made our list and headed out the door. It was one great shopping trip, and we saved almost $20.00 with coupons! We got some sweet deals on things by using a few $ off coupons combined with a few buy one get one frees. Anyway, let's just say I was happy when we walked out of the store :)

Our night only got better when we pulled up to our apartment complex and found this:

Yes, that would be a K-9 unit in our parking lot. And there's a regular cruiser just around the corner that you can't see in the picture. We kinda thought something was weird when we turned onto our street and saw two cop cars in the complex South of ours, and then these two in our parking lot, with another one blocking the exit, and two more cruisers in the complex just to the North! Something strange was afoot at Sonoma Village, but we didn't know what. And we still don't know what happened. When the K-9 unit left we were able to drive around to our parking spot and as we unloaded our groceries there were two officers walking the lot North of us and checking out every car...boy I love where we live!

Anyway, we headed off to Phoenix this morning to go on our hike. And boy was the weather nice. We got to the trail head about 10:45 and started up. We quickly found out that I am no where in the shape that I used to be as I was huffing and puffing. Granted, the hike was up the whole time, and pretty rocky and such. I woke up sounding a little funny and was having a little trouble breathing like I should, and about 1/4 of the way up I started feeling like I was going to pass out (fun, I know). I had a snack and we started taking breaks more regularly and for longer than just a few seconds. We went a while longer and Darren swore we were almost there, until we got to the 1/2 way point and realized how much higher we had to go.

We decided that we would let the mountain beat us and headed back down. There were some gorgeous views and we had a lot of fun.

Countdown: 27 days