My happy place

So it's been a while since I've blogged, huh?  I've realized that but haven't done much about it, until there was something I was really wanting to share with my friends.

This blog post is geared really towards my friends in Phoenix.  I miss you all dearly and hope you are doing well.  This time of year I sometimes wish I was back in Phoenix during its "winter." :)

So there is something really great about to happen in Gilbert, AZ.  A temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a the Mormon Church a.k.a the church I attend) will be open to the public before it is dedicated! The reason I am telling you this, is because I would love for each and every one of you, who live close or will be visiting the Gilbert area in the next month or so, to please go and visit the temple. I promise you that it would be such a cool experience, and a Mormon temple might just be one of the most beautiful and sacred buildings that you will ever see in your life.  Believe me when I say that I wish I was there to take each and every one of you, because this is how important this is to me. The temple is something so sacred to me; it is my "happy" place and one of the VERY few places where I feel totally at peace, and I want to share this with my friends.

To attend the open house of the temple, you need to get a ticket online.They are free and really the only reason you need a ticket is for crowd control.  Someone will guide you through the temple and tell you about it, and answer any questions you have.

Please, I beg you to go to it, I promise it will not be a waste of your time. There are no strings attached, you can ask as little or as many questions as you want about the temple, and about the church.  If anything, just go to view such a beautiful place.

Will you please tell me if you go?  I would love to know.  Please contact me if you have questions, want someone to go with, etc.  I will be impatiently patiently waiting to hear from you.  :)

The website for more information is found here. But for reservations go here. Please note that reservations for tickets opens tomorrow, so for today, there isn't a lot of information, if you are reading this today, the 29th.

When you get to the "sealing room," just know that this is where Wolfgang and I got married and sealed the deal!  It was in a room exactly like the one you will see.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Again let me know if you have any questions!

Our Halloween

Halloween is a weird holiday for me.  Every year I go through the same thing- {battle in my head}

Should I buy decorations and decorate my house?
No. You don't care about it that much, and therefore it would be a waste of money.  

Ok, but should I dress up in a costume and come up with something clever?  
Nah, that also isn't worth the money, and you're not creative enough with your wardrobe to come up with something.

But wouldn't it be cute if husband and I dressed up as a cute couple costume?
No.

Ok, fine.

So this year it was, yet again, pretty low key.  However, I did make "arrangements" (I guess you could call it) to get a group together, and thankfully a few committed to go with us, and we went to Markoff's Haunted Forest. As much of a pansy I am for horror movies, I DO love a good scare at a haunted house (or forest.)  It was a lot of fun!  And I screamed.  A lot. And the chainsaw guys feasted on my terror like wild beasts. There really should have been footage of that.

photo taken from crouching tigress in green

 Anyway, the day after the "holiday," at work we had a pumpkin carving and "Iron Chef" contest.  Can you guess which pumpkin was from my team?

sorry, bad lighting

Ok yep, ours was the one in the last two pictures.  Vulgar?  You mean funny.  And the err, "waste" coming from the pumpkin was our food for the contest!  "Pumpkin fluff" and pumpkin soup.  We didn't win either categories.  Lame!

Here are some other pumpkins Wolfgang and I carved with some friends a few weeks prior to Halloween also. {Their pumpkins included}

We again didn't get one single trick-or-treater, we didn't even bother buying candy this year.  How was your Halloween?

Austria Part 2: What we did

I'm going to say this again, it is realllly hard to go through hundreds of pictures.  Isn't it crazy how technology allows us to easily take so many pictures?  Yet so many bad quality pictures too sometimes, haha.

Here's a continuation in pictures, of some things we did while we were in Austria.

We met "Soccer," my Brother-in-law's wife's (pregnant!) horse.  I'm a sucker for horses

Weirdo.

 One of Soccer's stable buddies

Stayed at The Ritz-Carlton Vienna to celebrate our wedding anniversary (while I still had RC benefits)

Too bad they didn't read our "guest notes" that we don't drink alcohol: minus 2 pts.

RC has the BEST fluffy beds.

Went to the Globe Museum!  I LOVE all things globes and maps! Very impressive collection.

Old ones!

Normal ones!

ITTY BITTY CUTIE PATUTIE ONES!!

How much for the globe clock, kind sir?

Even in dim lighting you can see my, "I LOVE GLOBES!!!" face.

Went on a really tall building to see Vienna from above

Up next: places we saw, to be continued.

Catching up- Austria: Part 1

Oh my. It has been a while since I last blogged, hasn't it?  A lot has happened since the last time I blogged so let's get right to it, shall we?

In August we went to Austria!  It was just under a week, so it was a short trip, especially for overseas. The reason for our trip was because Wolfgang's sister got married!  I will apologize in advance that we didn't take very good pictures {my mom even called me out on it, thanks mom.}

So in my first series of pictures/post of this trip, here are some pictures from the wedding.

The wedding was a traditional Austrian wedding, which was fun.  Everyone wore Lederhosen and Dirndls (google it, or look below!) including us!  I wasn't excited when I first heard I had to wear a dirndl, but it wasn't so bad after all, and especially since everyone else was wearing one too.  I was definitely channeling Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music"  {short hair and all} but I didn't even get to take a, "The hills are alive!" picture like I so desperately wanted to!  I'll blame my husband.

The newlyweds

some fun and traditional games during the reception

 The moment some of you been waiting for: seeing Wolfgang in the lederhosen, and me in a dirndl! Pic with my brother-in-law and his wife, who got hitched last year

 Adorable?!  Husband and nephew, son of the new married couple

Yours truly.

Wolfgang did his hair. Can you tell?

Now this concludes Part 1; it's bedtime!  This is such a big deal that I'm finally doing this, I should reward myself with a brownie.  that I made tonight.

To be continued.

Girl's Camp

I'm back!

I know it's been a while since I've blogged.  There are have been a few things that I wanted to blog about and haven't, but that may have to be another time, or just skip over.

Last night Wolfgang and I got back from a trip to Austria for a week, BUT, this post is not about that; that'll be the next one or so.

Rewind to about two weeks ago, when I went to Girl's Camp!

This is a church-wide girl's camp for girls ages 12-17/18 (graduation).  I did this when I was growing up, and loved it. When I first became a 'Young Women' leader at church when I moved here, the first thing I said was, "Does this mean I get to go to Girls Camp?!"  Well, the YW president picked up on that quickly and also made me the "Ward Camp Director" back in February or so. I was excited but overwhelmed- I had NO idea what to expect- after all, the last time I went to camp was when I was a kid!

Turned out that being the Camp Director wasn't so bad and scary after all. The organization of leadership/responsibilities for preparation and also while being at camp are much different here than when I was a kid, and this was to my GREAT advantage.  I have a lot of respect for the women who were above me and had much more to do to make it a successful retreat.

The location for camp was much more modern (A boy scout camp) than I was use to, and oh so gorgeous. The scenery was breathtaking. {Proof in a moment!}

Myself and one other leader were over the "Level 3" girls, age 14-15ish. In total with our Youth Camp Leaders, there were 17, but the overall camp was approximately maybe 100ish.  I'm really bad with guessing numbers, so it could have been 120,345 girls.

We camped for 3 nights 4 days.  I could have stayed and enjoyed the great outdoors for much longer, but it was good timing in terms of being long days and not the most restful sleep I've ever had :)  The girls were fun and I wish I would have had a little more time to get to know each of them even more.  I guess that just means I need to go again next year!  Maybe...

I honestly have been loving working with the youth, I definitely believe it is where I need to be serving right now.

Enough of words.

The girls

I made them do a "jumping" picture. Slight fail ;)

Organized chaos

Canoeing- check.

Girl's from my church ward- adorbs. (girl in green is a sweetheart-just cut her off guard haha)

What I got to wake up to every day. Just gorgeous!

The girls are thrilled to be cooking on a camp stove.

Can I go back?

Going Private

Hi friends and family,

I have decided to put turn my blog private.  I know I know, that's super annoying. But it's going to just be temporary, and I have my reasons. More later.  So bare with me, and email me (if you have it) or comment on this post with your email address if you want me to add you so that you can keep reading my nonsense.  I'm not sure how this all works, so here we go!

4th o' July

The 4th was a good one this year.  It was the first in years that I wasn't working, and that's because I asked for it off, and magically got it.  It's actually one of my favorite holidays, so I was really excited about it.

A co-worker of Wolfgang's asked if we wanted to BBQ and watch the fireworks with him and his wife, and we gave a big YES.

It went surprisingly well; the company we knew we already liked and would enjoy, but it was questionable in the fact that both them and us (bad grammar?) didn't really have any idea what we were doing, since it was both of our first 4th in DC.

Somehow we found a parking spot at a park in DC, picked out a good spot to camp out for the next several hours, and had a good time eating a lot and having fun.

A couple of firsts also happened:

1) Apparently in DC they patrol such holidays with low flying police and military helicopters, equipped with people leaning outside of the doors with guns.

2) I saw my first ever fireflies! They're cute.

 Our view

The Washington Monument poking out- currently under construction

Next two photos taken from our friends

I don't know either.

Why I support soccer {football}

I've never been a fan of soccer.  Growing up I hated playing it and would avoid it at all costs, and I also would find it extremely boring to watch.

But then I married a European, and this sport is more of a big deal in other countries.

So recently the husband has been actively watching soccer games.  I think this is the first time in our marriage that he A) has had time to sit and watch it, and/or B) first time we have had cable to watch it.

I really don't mind that he watches it, because he's not the maniac type when watching sports. (I really lucked out, AND he doesn't like video games. I'm so blessed)

In fact, I have even started watching it, and kind of enjoy it!  I don't really sit and actively watch the whole game, but it's not as grueling as I remember it being. With that said, I have come up with some reason that I think why I am now ok with watching soccer:

1.  The players don't wear helmets.  Why does this matter?  Because you can check out the players.  And my oh my, some of them are blessed with good genes.

2. They never stop the clock. Why has (American) football not figured this one out yet?!

3.  Why I support DC United in particular;
      a. You kind of "have to" support a local sport's team, right?
      b. More importantly, Ben Olsen is the coach.  Why does this matter, you ask?

Let me show you why.

Mmmm....

 What, you need more proof? ok.

Any further questions?  I didn't think so.

Concert and a Throw Back

love the guy with his arms in the air. This depicts so many of the country fans. love 'em!

This past Saturday Wolfgang and I went to a Kenny Chesney concert {Although shown above is Eric Church} because I scored some free tickets at work!  You can never pass up a country concert.

It is also a rule that you cannot attend a country concert, without getting your country on.  So that is exactly what I did.

"Is that a belt buckle on your waist?!"  Why yes, yes it is.  And it is legit.

Once upon a time I went to college for my first two years in Idaho; I loved it and learned a lot.

One of those things I learned was how to bring out my inner cowgirl.  I took some pretty amazing classes while I was attending college, some of which where field biology classes, and on our lab day we got to ride horses and collect plants n' things. It was definitely one of the best semesters of my college career.

Anyway, during the time I was taking those classes, I went to a country store and coveted an expensive belt buckle.  I wanted to play along and become "one of them" {those crazy ones who legit-ly wear a belt buckle} during my lab classes.  I went home and found the buckle on ebay for a fraction of the price, and bought that sucker.

The name of the belt buckle is "First Love," which if you can't tell from the picture, it is a girl kissing a horse.
awwwwww.

Every buckle has to have a story, right?  Well to me this represented my horse, "Grace" that I was assigned to during that field biology course.  I've mentioned her before on my blog. {kinda in sad circumstances, sorry. Also that is when my pics were deleted}

Here are some 'throw back' pictures/memories of me with my belt buckle and Grace for my your enjoyment.
{These were taking back in '07, btw.}

Bad A****

Cool kids 

Never mind that we are pointing at each other inappropriately.  We were comparing buckles, OK?!?