Day 3

It's already the 3rd, so Day 2 and 3 today.

For my love today, I would like to talk about the earth. I love the earth. I am so grateful for this earth and all of God's creations.

Today for our internship, Tom and I got to go to the zoo! Cool, I know. We're doing a promotion with the Communication Director at Zoo Miami, so we went and 'scouted out' where we want to shoot. We had so much fun! We found quite a few spots and talked about what we want to do, but mostly we enjoyed God's beautiful creations.

Needless to say, we saw a ton of cool animals. A Bengal tiger, lions, turtles, antelope, a komodo dragon, tons of birds, fish, monkeys, and my favorite of the day- elephants (African and Asian)! I also got to feed a giraffe! Amazing!

Anyway, I am in love with this planet that I live on. Mother nature always amazes me. I have loved all the places on the earth I have been able to see so far and hope to be able to see a great deal more before I'm laid in it. I desperately want to visit every continent, except for the frozen tundra of Antarctica. I'm sure the rest of the world will astound me as much as the it already has.

Also, I'm watching Planet Earth on tv right now. Just reenforcing my love for this planet.

Day 2

Day 2... one day late. My bad!

For day 2 of my 14 Days of Love, I have decided to share my love of my own healthy body. For a Christmas present, Tom's Mom got us gym passes to 24 Hour Fitness. Maybe part of the reason is due to the fact that the last time we were in Miami visiting, Tom and I both gained a bit of weight. We were on vacation, alright?

Either way, I'm grateful to have my gym pass because we don't really live near any parks and jogging outside is basically a no-go because I'd have to go on a crazy busy road. The best part is that our gym is right around the corner, so I can jog or walk to it when it's nice out (which is 90% of the time).

Anyway, I'm in love with the way exercise makes me feel. I always have been, and I'm realizing more and more how important it is for me to keep up a routine.

Most of all, I love my body for all the amazing things I am able to do because I have a strong, healthy one.

I love to run.

I love to snowboard.

I love to longboard and skateboard.

I love to play volleyball.

I love to swim in the ocean.

I love to boogey-board and surf.

I love to walk my dog.

I love to smile.

I love to talk....a lot.

I love to laugh.

I love to breath in fresh air.

I love to eat delicious food.

All in all, I love my body. It allows me to do so many

incredible things.

14 Days of Love

It's the beginning of the season of love. For us, it starts with Valentine's Day. Right after the holiday, it's Tom's parents' anniversary. On the 20th is my birthday! And in March we will celebrate our first year anniversary; I'm so excited! I can't believe it has almost been a year.

Anyway, I decided to do this 14 days of love because I saw it on my friend's blog and I loved it. Also, I have so many people, places and experiences that I love and am grateful for.

So, I will start with the place with the most love in the world. The Temple. I love the Temple and my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

The Orlando Temple with Tom's parents. Soon, there will be one in South Florida too!

The Rexburg Temple. This is the Temple I've gone in the most.

The Salt Lake City Temple. Where Tom and I got engaged.The one that started everything for me. My beloved Mesa Temple.

The Holidays till Now

So, it's been so long since I've posted. Sadly, Tom has been the one really wanting me to update this, so I'm working on it. Anyways, I didn't write about Christmas or New Year's or our cross-country road trip at all. Let's start with Christmas.

We spent Christmas with my family in Gilbert and had a blast. We spent Christmas Eve with my Mom's extended family eating and opening presents to one another. I didn't get to see some of my cousins, but we still had fun. Then on Christmas we opened presents and enjoyed following Krew around because he's the cutest member of our family. We also spent time with our dog Titan who we miss.

Right after Christmas, my family was invited to join the Palmer-Holyoak family at their cabin and go snowboarding. I went with my family and Thomas stayed in Gilbert and spent time with his friend John. I missed him, but our snowboarding was great. Unfortunately, basically all the pictures I have from our vacation were taking on our snowboarding trip (thanks to Blaze for bringing a camera).

Here is a picture of half of the snowboarding group (my siblings- except sis-in-law Ashli because she's pregnant; Dallin's friend Eric; Ashley's friends Blaze, Ryan and Mike).

Here is our snowboarding family minus Ashli, Krew and my Mom. I can't wait to see Krew on the slopes someday!

This is my favorite picture from our trip. It's my sister Ashley and I on the lift!

After Christmas and miserably packing back up our car-again- we left Arizona for Florida. We drove through Arizona, New Mexico and half of Texas in one day. Then we stayed with our friend Tucker at his home in Mississippi (thanks Tucker!). After that, we made it all the way down to Miami and arrived at about 9p.m. New Year's Eve. It was great to see Tom's parents again who we'll be staying with while we are doing our internship.

Now, Thomas and I are working at WLRN; it's the Public Television and Radio station for South Florida. Since we are both studying Communications at BYU-Idaho, we were able to get two positions at the same company for our internship. We work together and are having a lot of fun.

So far, we've been involved with giveaways and promotions of their Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account. We also helped with the broadcast of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade in Liberty City. We helped gather information about each organization in the parade. During the event, we helped the hosts get the information so they knew what to say about each group. Despite the rain, it was a lot of fun. We're excited to be doing our internships and are lucky to be in beautiful, warm Miami right now.

Midnight Hot Chocolate Run

I thought I knew the town of Rexburg, Idaho pretty well, but this experience taught me something I never fathomed.

First off, Tom and I made the mistake of taking a late afternoon nap on Sunday after church (our church ends at 4). This napping made us stay up late last night. Tom was working on homework and I was just surfing the internet. But we weren't sleepy at all. Tom suggested we go get hot chocolate because it was no longer the Sabbath, but Monday morning!

We don't have curfew because we're married, so we decided to hit the town! We didn't understand what 'hitting the town' this late in Rexburg entailed.

This experience showed us just how dead Rexburg really is late at night/really early in the morning. We saw probably only three other cars on the road- literally, this is not an exaggeration. And every time we pulled up to a streetlight it magically changed into whatever we needed (a miracle in this small, slow town).

In our quest for food, we decided to see if Jack in the Box was open for some delicious $.99 tacos (no judgements, please). Unfortunately, they were closed. What about Wendy's? Open 2am or later, right? Wrong. Closed too. We thought the one 24 hour place that exists in Rexburg would be open, but Ramirez must've changed their hours. They were also a fail. We thought we were going to have to give up, or drive all the way to Rigby or Idaho Falls for a late-night snack. We settled on the only store open, the gas station Maverik. We got hot chocolate and a hot dog. I love Tom even more for his idea to go out at 1:30am Monday morning. Now we know what Rexburg is really like.

(Please disregard the extreme enthusiasm on our faces about gas station food/drink.)

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

December date night= double date making gingerbread houses!

Tom and I made gingerbread houses with Zack and Amy, our engaged friends. It was so much fun. We made gingerbread villages, to be exact. They were a bunch of tiny houses that you make and decorate.

The finished products:

Thanks Tom and Zack for planning date night. I love Christmastime!

Happy Thanksgiving, a Bit Late

We enjoyed Thanksgiving in the warm Arizona sunshine. It was beautiful the whole time we were there. It was hard to go back to Rexburg where snow accumulated daily. On Thanksgiving morning, we went on a hike to the wind caves in the Superstition Springs mountains. The hike was beautiful and exhilarating.

Our cute little dog Titan came with us on the trial. He had a great time and made friends with another dog named Sauce.

Tom enjoyed soaking up the sun. He got in touch with mother nature.

Here's my sissy overlooking the Phoenix metropolitan area.

I didn't take many pictures at our actual Thanksgiving dinner. Ashley was really excited for the turkey.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. Thanks a million Mom! This year was a small group. It was my immediate family minus Tyler, Ashli and Krew who ironically went to Idaho for Thanksgiving. Fortunately, my Gma was with us. She's the sweetest Grandma ever and we call her Gma because she's gangsta like that. After the Thanksgiving festivities meant that Christmastime began. We helped with the tree, went black Friday shopping and made a gingerbread house. Tom and I put the house together and Ashley, my Mom and I decorated it.

The most eventful part of our trip for Tom was going to the Phoenix Suns game with my Dad.

Our trip back up to Rexburg was eventful, to say the least. We ended up leaving on Sunday instead of our intended Saturday because Tom and I slept in. We left my parent's house in Gilbert at about 6am and made it to our friend John's house by about 6:30. John joined us for the trip and probably learned a lot more than he wanted to about us. But, seeing as it is a 15 hour car ride, it comes as no surprise that we got a little wired.

Anyway, we made great time to Las Vegas, but the trouble came in Cedar City. There was a huge snowstorm that sent us back at least an hour and half. However, despite being in stand-still traffic on the I-15, we still believed that we could make it in one day. But, as we traveled on the snow was still bad. We had to stay in Provo that night.

Thankfully, John had a friend with whom he stayed, and Thomas and I stayed with my old roommate Sarah and her husband Daniel. Thank you Sarah and Daniel! They were so nice and kind to let us stay with them. Let's just say, this Thanksgiving, I was grateful for them. We promptly emailed our teachers like good little students and drove the rest of the way the next day. Finally, we made it home!

Now all we have to do is rock our finals and we can leave this forbidden tundra for the warm tropics of Miami. But for now, the snow is making me feel very festive. Christmas is all around! It's literally a winter wonderland here!