Kendall's Bridal Shower

I did a bridal shower for my best friend Kendall who got married last weekend.

Kendall's Aunt Trina and Kendall's sister Kelsey seeing how well they know Kendall and Matt in one of the games we played. They were 2 of the 6 bridesmaids and we all had a blast at our bachelorette party the night night before the big day. We went to where else but Swensens and to the GSR for a bowling competition: Married Women (or soon to be married) against the Single Ladies!

Thanks to the wonderful world of technology, Heidi was able to be at the shower via web cam. I love you Heidi! So glad you got to be a part of this!

Kendall opening some scandalous gifts. :) Nice boa!

I am so glad I was able to throw the shower for Kendall. I hope she had a good time!

Darin's Birthday

Another year older and wiser too! We were at Iosepa for Darin's birthday, so we celebrated after we got back. We went over to my brother and sister-in-laws. We played racket ball, swam, had a BBQ, played Rook, watched National Treasure 2, had cake and ice cream and opened presents. We had a great time. Here are some pictures:

The wonderful double layer cake I made. (No making fun of the writing!)

Darin blowing out all 24 candles!

Darin got cologne and Planet Earth. He was super excited to start watching it!

I hope you had a great birthday sweetheart. I love you!

Iosepa

For Memorial day we went camping at Iosepa. We had a great time listening to Hawaiian music, eating food, and watching the entertainment (including Hawaiian and Tahitian hulas and amazing fire-knife dancers) Darin and his dad were interviewed by KSL (a Utah TV news station) for a segment they did on Iosepa. (To see the segment, go to: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3393511 . That is Darin's Dad playing the guitar in the background.) We were also able to help Darin's brother set the grave stone for Darin's niece. We are glad we were able to be a part of this since we weren't there for the burial. We know Sierra is with our Heavenly Father now.

Darin Passed!

It is official- Darin passed the ICE test! Way to go Darin! I am so proud of him! We found out 3 weeks after he took the test. We weren't expecting to get the results for another month! Yippee! So we are on to the next step -- Interviews. A hiring agent should be calling within 3-4 weeks to set up an interview! We are really excited! We will keep you updated!

San Fran and Monterey

We had a great extended weekend in San Francisco and Monterey.On our way down Wednesday, we stopped at the Oakland Temple. Neither of us had ever done a session there. We were also able to do some sealings, which haven't done either. It was a great experience.


Thursday, after Darin took his test, we went down to Pier 39. It was lots of fun. It was fascinating watching the Sea Lions. There was sooo many! And they were sooo loud!





Friday, we drove down Lombard Street - The crookedest road in America. And then headed down to Monterey.


In Monterey, we window shopped on Fisherman's Wharf, ate the best food ever, went to the aquarium, ate at Bubba Gumps, window shopped on Cannery Row, saw more sea lions, and bought the coolest shirts ever - they change color in the sun!

My friend - the otter

Easter

I love Easter! (Sorry I don't have pictures yet) Our Easter started Saturday. We dyed eggs at my parents. Darin dyed an irregularly long egg like a football; Curtis was feeling patriotic and dyed one red, white and blue. I love dying eggs, but that's not enough. So Saturday night around 11:30, my mom and Curtis played the Easter Bunny for Darin, Alicia, and I. Even my Uncle Curt search for eggs with us. Then Curtis and I had our own Easter egg hunt, thanks to Darin and Alicia. It must have been a sight watching us running around the house, tearing everything up. It was such a blast!
Sunday, we had a wonderful day at church hearing about the Resurrection of our Savior. Then we had a delicious ham dinner with my parents and Darin's parents. It was nice to be all together.
And, of course, the whole time eating jelly beans, robin eggs, and our See's chocolate eggs! We hope you had a good Easter too!

The New Plan for the Rest of our Lives!

As many of you may know, Darin was planning on going into the Church Educational System (CES). He decided to take this semester off of teaching early morning seminary and focus on school and decide if it was something he really wanted to pursue. Well as soon as he decided to take the semester off, we both felt that CES was not right for us. Daring started looking into the FBI and ICE(Immigrations and Customs Enforcement). He talked to a guy in our ward (Mark) who we thought worked for the FBI, and it turns out that he works for ICE. :) Well, that week, in a meeting Mark's boss asked if anyone knew someone who might want to apply for ICE because they had some extra pin numbers that you need to apply to take the test. So, Darin went in and met with the head person in Reno (who told him he came highly recommended) and got a pin number! He had to be one of the first 1000 people to register online. As we were almost done registering, the computer started acting up and wouldn't let us finish, I said a prayer and it started working again. The power of prayer is amazing. So Darin takes the test on April 3rd in San Francisco. We are going to make a long weekend trip out of it and spend a couple days in San Fran and a couple days in Monterey.
We have been getting so many questions about the whole process, so here it is what we understand it to be:
~ Take the 4-5 hour test in San Fran April 3rd
~ 6-8 weeks later find out if he passed
~ Go through a process of 4 (?) interviews probably in San Francisco
~ Wait probably 6-8 months while ICE does a 10 year background check
~ If he turns up clean, we are offered 3 places/jobs across the US. We choose where we want to go from our options.
~ Darin goes to a training base for 4 months in Georgia. We haven't decide if I will go with him. (We are hoping that is is around May or June 2009 - When Darin graduates from UNR.)
~ Darin graduates from the Academy and is officially a Special Agent!
~ We move ... somewhere. :) (hopefully around September 2009)

We are really excited about ICE! The Lord has really blessed us in this process thus far. It seems like everything is falling into place for this to work out. So, we will keep you updated!

Rexburg Temple

My friend Kendall and I had a girls weekend. We drove to our old stoppin' grounds- Rexburg, for the temple open house. As we drove into Rexburg in the dark, we could see the temple glowing on the hill. It was beautiful. These pictures don't do it justice. I wish I had some at night. We only stayed in Rexburg for a day, then we drove down to Provo and spent some time with our friend Sara. Although I did miss Darin, it was nice to have some quality girl time!

Do you see all that snow! It was freezing!



The view of BYU-Idaho from the temple.

Christmas

Sorry I am a little behind on our blog. We had a great Christmas - Here are a couple pictures.
Opening our P.J.s Christmas Eve!




We also got a Video Camera! Look forward to videos from us. (As soon as I have time to sit down and figure out how to post videos!)



We slept over at my parents house on Christmas Eve with my brother and sister-in-law. We woke up at the crack of dawn opened presents, just like when we were kids. I guess we haven't really grown up yet.

The two of us in front of my parent's tree. Look at all those presents! Don't worry, they weren't all ours!

Alicia, my mom, and I got scrapbooking kits! It's my new hobby. I just finished my 2nd spread. It is lots of fun!


Darin and I got remote control cars. They are sweet! They can power slide like nothing I've seen before!







In front of our tree! This is the first year we have a Christmas tree! It smelled sooo good. I will always have a real tree. :)