I love him...

When I look at him, I feel happy and grateful. I am excited to move forward in the adventures we have faced and have yet to face. He is kind and loving. I love to hold his hand and give him kisses. I am a lucky girl. He is my best friend and my eternal companion.

A tribute to my wife

she rises with the sun.
and like a solar presence,
just by being who she is,
brightens my life each day.
she smiles and life is sweeter.
dreams no longer thrill me,
because her beauty takes my breath away.
she's every dream of mine come true,
and in every way, my life is better,
Because she is by my side.

P.S. I love you Dara

Sometimes...

you just have one of those moments (or a lot of those moments) when you wonder why so many doors are closing in your life...and then of course you know that saying "when one door closes another one opens..." I suppose it just seems difficult to wait for the other doors to open. They will always open...sometimes it takes a little bit longer than you were hoping for. I think, it's times like these when all those doors seem to be closing, that you realize how many things you have to be grateful for...did you know that my people of Guatemala are suffering?? A sink hole, a hurricane, and a volcano!!?? The volcano erupted in my mission and in contact I have had with people there...things are not going very well. They rarely having running water and when it comes, it's contaminated with all the ash and debris from the volcano. Now believe me bloggy people, my people of Guatemala have hard times and live harder lives than we could imagine-but they are the happiest, wonderfuliest, greatest, bestest people alive (in my opinion of course). There is happiness to be found in all things- even when it feels as though the doors keep closing and no doors are opening. Hold to the rod, walk slower on the straight and narrow path...and the doors will slowly begin to open-one door at a time-until you don't have enough room to store all the blessings coming from all of the open doors. It's a promise.from the Lord.you would feel better if you trust in Him.promise.


Somos locos (and don't mind my crazy eyes)


JALONNNNNN


En serio, somos locos


See, I have walked in another's shoes ya know!


La Sociedad de Socorro

The Celebration of Beautiful Nas' Birthday

I would have to say we are a lucky family-Not everybody has a beautiful Nas...although she has "adopted" lots of children over the years who will always call her "Nas." Ryan and I put together some flowers and candy on Friday and he dropped them off to her at work, making a big deal about her birthday in front of all her friends. Ryan said it was fun and Nas really enjoyed the little show she got and all the candy she could share with her friends at work. We had a wonderful time celebrating her birthday, May 29th. She requested a BBQ-catered by QT and Jen. She had a great time opening presents and blowing out candles on the cake made by the one and only-Ryan. He has become a great cake maker-he has great potential to go far in cake making!


The Birthday Girl


Go Marines-opening some gifts from her loved ones


She believed we really gave her a pink hair dryer-it was the only box I could find to pack her workout clothes! We had a great laugh over that!


The party people



Blowing out the candles on the beautiful cake!

It was a fun day-We love you, Nas. Thank you for being so wonderful. We enjoyed celebrating your birthday.

We've got your back...

a 5K: 3.1 miles! Today, May 22, 2010- Ryan, Mom B., Nas, Sharon (Shreffler Family friend), Penny, Carly (Baird family friends), and I ran this 5k, raising money for Spinal Research. It was so fun. We are all very proud of ourselves and each other. We all finished and it was everybody's first race (except Ryan and I). It was fun to do it all together.


This was taken before the race...we were excited and nervous...


This was taken after the race. Our smiles are bigger and we are so proud of ourselves. We made a friend-Zebra pants man. He high-fived me on the race course and looked totally awesome in his outfit. We had to include him in our picture.

Gourmet Meal

Ryan made us a gourmet meal last week! It was very yummy and had a lot of thought and preparation was put into it...Ryan really is a great chef/cooking extraordinaire


He was really into it...


Yummy chicken south western burgers


potato sides


The yummy chicken burger: ground chicken and seasonings (including crunched doritos), mayo, avocado, salsa, pepperjack cheese

My party...

was so fun. I totally enjoyed it and loved my party people...the people can make the party the bomb.com. They were my family-some of them: Shannon is practically family, Jen, Aaron, Mom, Dad, Mom B., Dad B., Natalie, and of course Ryan. We had dinner (2 different nights) and opened gifts and talked about me...so of course it was awesome. My cake was beautiful and yummy. Thank you for my wonderful birthday celebrations to my parents, family, and friends!


Cupcakes from my sis-in-law...so nice!


My party people!


More party people...


and even more party people...