Guatemalan road rules

One of 2 pages in "Xela Who" - " Quetzaltenango's leading culture and nightlife magazine". Laughed so hard at this! Although, I do have to admit that I have seen at least 3 cars use a turn signal in the last week.

Trip delay - SNOWSTORM

I was supposed to head to Guatemala today, but due to a snowstorm, I will now be leaving tomorrow. I have been home for just over 6 weeks and this is at least the 4th storm. Man, I wish I would have brought my snowshoes with me!!

haha, after I uploaded the photos I realized that my dad and I have very similar poses in our pics.

Soli LOVES snow!!! She acts like a puppy again in it.

Bre's baby shower

Amber and I threw Bre a baby shower. Yes, that is the relief society room. I know, lame, but it came out nice. It was a frog theme, if you can not tell.

My favorite part of the shower was the cake that Amber and I made! I painted the cattails that we bought from the Dollar Store (they were pink). And the log and lily pads we molded from cake. Our original log looked like... well, not the kinda log you would want to eat. It was so late at night when we were working on it that were laughing like crazy about it.

Bre got a lot of nice gifts! Tons of adorable clothes for their new baby boy who is due May 5th.

It was nice to see so much family because, although we all live in the area, we often go years without all getting together.

Picture of the relatives at the shower - All on my dad's side

I love Sasha

No, no, I am not talking about loving myself. I am talking about my ADORABLE, incredible smart, funny, sweet cousin. When we are together Beth decided it is easier not to confuse us by calling her Sashimi and me Salchicha. I wish I lived closer to Beth, Ken, and Sasha.

I only spent a day and a half with them, but loved every second of it. Beth and I even went cross-country skiing for an hour in 6 degree weather. Woohoo!!

My house in SLC, UT

Here are some pictures of the house I am living in. I am living with my friend Emily Bates. The house has been in her family for I think at least 40 or more years. It is amazing! We are set up on a hill too so in the evenings you can see the city lights. Emily said it is better in the winter when the leaves have dropped. It's nice to be in a place with so much space!

upstairs living room

                        

This is the outside BBQ area complete with an oven, grill, stove, fridge, freezer, fireplace, plenty of covered seating.

Drivin' to Utah!

I LOVE road trips! Although I do not like saying good-bye or packing up my life, which this road trip involved. I never thought I would be moving back to Utah. Well, here it goes! I am really excited to be living out there, but really sad to be so far from my family. 

While I was gone my car stopped working and in fact, my Dad couldn't even get it started by jumping it. So.... we spent a couple nights working on my car. We ended up replacing the battery, front brakes and rotors, spark plugs and wires, and the..... My dad is an Angel. He spent a lot of his very limited free time helping me out. I love you Dad (and not just because you help me with my car )  :)

I drove to Kentucky to get Kirsti who was planning to head out to Utah too. She is not quite sure where she is going to be living so although we were going to drive in separate cars she decided if she could come with me it would be better to leave her car at her parent's house for now. 

I finally got my car packed up with just enough extra room for Kirsti, Soli and Kirsti's bag. I packed almost everything out of bags and boxes so I could fit more things in. I ended up re-packing my car 2 times after the original time to try to consolidate things better. And I headed off to get Kir. Mapquest said it would take me 18 hours.... well, it took me about 22! I only stopped for gas and the bathroom too! Since my car is such a junker I tend to drive a little slow.

I hung out with Kir at her house for a bit, took a sauna, watched a little CSI, went to lunch with her family, and finally continued on our way at...... 4pm!!! haha... we ended up splitting the drive into 3 days and spent 2 nights in hotels. I ended up driving the whole time which worked out perfect because 1) I packed the car so tight behind my seat that we couldn't move the driver's side seat back and she is a bit taller than me and 2) she can read without getting car sick and so she read me "Twilight" (and finished it)

It was a perfect drive out. On the 2nd day with Kir we were both really tired at a rest stop and it was so nice out that we decided to take a nap on the lawn..... we were on our way again 1.5 hours later. It was nice to not feel really rushed. 

The last morning we woke up in Cheyenne to it slushing out and as we drove it turned into snow!

Although the drive was nice, it was nice to make it to SLC!

back to the Northeast

I made it back to Boston without any problems! And spent about 2 weeks with my family. I had mixed feelings about being back. Of course it was amazing to see my family!

I wish I would have taken more pictures, but here are some of what I took....

Dylan and I went to visit Beth and Sasha in Plymouth. We went for a hike to a little pond.

Dylan jumped in the pond. He didn't mean to get so wet, but fell in up to his neck. It was COLD!!

Here is the fort we built in the back of mom and dad's house with some scrap wood. And a really quick TeePee I threw together.

Josh met me in downtown Manchester to take me out to lunch. Here is a picture of us in Mom's shop.

Me and Dylan after using my new juicer.... YUM!!

 I went up to Amber's house a couple times to hang out with her and her family. I LOVE when she sings and Jeremiah plays the mandalin(sp?)

I LOVE my family!! That is going to be the hardest thing about being in Utah!!