Plaid Sunday

So Mom made me a really cute new dress. It was done in time for Sunday and church so I wore it today. Mom had on a plaid skirt so I asked dad to wear a plaid tie so he could match us. Here is the dress:


And on a side note, I have one week left in Vegas before I head out to Rexburg. I"m way excited to go! I miss my roommates and just the atmosphere. I love Idaho :)

My Life in Vegas

So, it's been a little while since I updated this blog. A LOT of stuff has happened since then.

First, I am working again at Sport's Authority. Although it isn't really my fave, we go way back to last summer. I am getting enough money for school and I am also getting feet that hurt me really bad. Fortunately Sports Authority sells insoles which fool your feet into thinking they are walking on clouds. They are amazing!

Secondly, I am here at the place where I always see Richard, only Richard isn't here. It was extremely weird at first coming home and not having Richard pick me up at the airport. It was even more weird going to visit his family with him not there. I really really like his family though. Right now I am helping his sister make a Princess Zelda costume for anime Vegas.

So far I almost have the white and purple parts done. We took things from savers instead of making them from scratch. But yes, it should be pretty snazzy when it's done.

In other news on Richard's family, I was looking for geneology on Richard's Dad's parents. It has been pretty hard since he is adopted and didn't have contact with his biological family. Through my searchings I found Richard's dad's brother. I contacted him asking about geneology stuff, and it turned out that his mom didn't mean to adopt them out. His dad was in the military in Germany and they were going to move to the United States but the military said they could only take 5 of their kids. His dad then set up the adoption of 2 of his kids and had his wife ( who only spoke German and broken English) sign the papers that were in English that she couldn't read. So he and his sister were adopted away and didn't even find out they were adopted until they were in college when their adoptive dad died. To make a long story short, this woman has been looking for her kids for awhile but hasn't heard from them in over 40 years. After I contacted the brother of Richard's dad that whole family was so excited to hear news from them after so long, and now Richard's dad and aunt agreed to talk to their biological family. I know it wasn't me that did this. If I hadn't listened to the promptings of the spirit I don't think I would have found the brother. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for letting me be his instrument in bringing this family together. I can' timagine the greif that I would feel if I had to give up two children and never see them again. It is so sad, but I am so glad that this woman can finally have peace knowing that her children are okay.

Sorry this is such a long post by the way.

Talk to ya next week :)

Pictures!

Here's everyone in his zone right before they left for Portugal. Lots of people are going!





Richard sent me these this morning. He looks like he is having fun :) He hasn't told me anything about his companion, so I don't know what his name is or where he's from.

I'm leaving on a jet plane!

My internship is officially over! Now I am going back to Vegas tomorrow. I am actually pretty excited about it :) It was sad to leave the friends that I have made here, but I know that there will be other friends.

In other news, Richard has been in Portugal for 2 weeks now (or he will on wednesday). He is in Leiria.He told me that he really likes his trainer and that he is learning piano from him. He didn't say much else but that he can almost understand people now. If you want to write him a letter his address is
Elder Haun
Quinta Sao Venancio
Lt. 13 2ª Dto
2410-387 Leiria
Portugal

Oh yeah I also got my job back at Sports Authority so I am excited (sorta) about that at least I will be able to pay for school :)

Harry Potter

As I'm sure all of you know, I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. Not so much the movies as the books, but I understand that movies are rarely ever as good as the book.

Half Blood Prince is one of my favorite books of the series. (6 & 7 are the best) But seeing the reviews of the movie I had high expectations going in. I was surprised to hear the critics saying that it was actually good!

So I dressed up as Ginny and went with my intern friends to the premier. We got there at 9:30 pm and there was already a HUMONKIN line. Not very many people were dressed up either. And most of the people that came were high school kids and they were super annoying. We got free icecream if we were in line though so that was okay.So then they let us in the theatre at 10:30 and we had to wait an hour and a half for the movie to start. Good thing my buddy Zac had a deck of cards and we had snuck in lots of candy :)

So then the movie finally started and people kept talking, I was so mad. But they stopped after the previews.

The movie was REALLY good. I never like the HP movies and I LOVED this one! It was so funny! There were parts where I was the only person laughing in the theatre (which actually happens quite a lot. It also happened when I saw Nacho Libre). It cut out some important parts but the characterization was perfect and the humor was excellent. I didn't cry, but I almost did. But over all I would say that if you haven't seen it you should go! It is soo good. It didn't really feel long to me because I used the restroom before the movie (ingeniuos).

Yellowstone

I went with the other interns and our advisor and his wife to Yellowstone this weekend. We went up on Friday afternoon and camped there until today. It was really cool to see the geysers and hotpools and even some wildlife.

We started in Jackson and went through Grand Teton National Park.
We stopped in West Yellowstone at Madison camp grounds and set up tents and everything for the night. We had yummy chicken stirfry stuff and smores :) Then we called it a night.

The next morning we got up at 6:30 am, ate a quick meal of oatmeal and then headed off to the Grand Prismatic pool. Our advisor Dr. Steve told us that it would be better to see all of the Grand Prismatic if we were on the hill behind it, so we went on a little hike, climbed the hill and saw this:

That is just steam not water over the pool. This one is also the biggest hot pools in the entire world!
Then we went further on to a really pretty waterfall called Fairy Falls. The water cooled us off basically instantly, it was like mist. While we were there we saw a marmit, and I found my perfect wand for the Harry Potter premier on tuesday night.

After that we looked at some hot pools while we waited for Grand Fountain Geyser to go off.
I found out that when the hot pools are white or blue as opposed to yellow and orange, the water is too hot for any bacteria to grow. The orange and yellow colors are from the bacteria. Gross huh?

Grand Fountain was really spectacular and looks way better in person. The top of it shot more than 50 feet in the air!

We saw a couple more geysers

and then called it a night. A five hour hike can make you really tired! I got a really bad sunburn line that day too waiting for the geyser in the hot sun.



Then today we just looked around at the geysers and pools closest to the lodge and Old Faithful. I finally did see Old Faithful, and thought it was pretty, but not worth all of the hype.
Our plan was to see some of the really nice geysers, but we missed a few. Our information about when Castle geyser was going to erupt was wrong, so we waited for about 45 minutes for that one then found out it went off 10 minutes before we got there. Then we saw Riverside Geyser which was my favorite throughtout the weekend. It shoots out right above the river (hence the name) but it was so high and my picture makes it look like I was close and it was small, but it really looks better in person.

We missed Grand Geyser. The window of it going off was estimated from 2:40-7:00pm we got to Old Faithful around 2:50 after our lunch and it was probably a 10 minute walk to Grand, but we saw it erupting over the pine trees from a mile and a half away. So technically I saw a bit of it but I was really sad about that. So instead we went to Excelsior and Grand Prismatic. Its really different from the ground instead of above it. The steam above Grand Prismatic was pretty colors ( a feat that Professor Steve loved to tell us the physics of but I have now forgotten...it has something to do with the angle of the sun and the water droplets). The pic makes it look like you can see the water through the steam making it look those colors, but it really was just the steam.Heres the hill we saw Grand Prismatic from ^ (see first picture)

Then we went home. And we saw some deer and elk. I also passed Rexburg and saw the temple. I miss that place!

So yeah this weekend was all in all very very fun!

Lava Hot Springs

So 2 weekends ago I went with the other REU interns to Lava Hot Springs. It was really fun and very relaxing!

We also found a secluded spot and shot potato guns. These felt more like rocket launchers than guns though!

All in all a fun weekend. This weekend we are going river rafting for the fourth of July. I will try to get pictures!

Love ya