What the...?

We found this in our mailbox the other day, and it left us quite puzzled. Pictured is exactly how it came--on a half sheet of white paper, blank on the other side, with the first side having a semi-copied section of what we can make out as a section of BYU Magazine. Notice how it says "fees due 50 cents" at the top and "Penalty for private use to avoid payment of postage, $300" next to it. 50 cents to who? For what? This is literally what we have, and we have no clue as to what it is and what we're supposed to do with it. Any ideas? We honestly can't even conjure up a though of what it could be.

Our Weekend in Tahoe

Aaron and I have been feeling like we just needed to get away and we thought "What better place than Tahoe?" My great aunt has a cabin there and she kindly let us use it for the weekend. We left Friday after work, stopped to rent Aaron a snowboard for his first snowboarding adventure, and drove 2 hours to Tahoe. When we got to the cabin it was absolutley covered in snow.


Look how deep the snow is! It is way taller than the car. The driveway is at an incline so it was difficult to park the car, and we noticed it slid back a few feet on its own sometime saturday night. That could have been really bad.

We had to forge our way up the driveway and walkway in the dark, only to discover that the key we had didn't work! It was too late to do anything but go to a motel. The Travel Inn was the cheapest one we could find. It's not too bad, right?


About to leave for the slopes


We went to Heavenly Ski Resort, which was just around the corner from the Travel Inn. Unfortunately it took us about 30 minutes to get up the road to the parking lot, and then we were directed to park along the street which had hardly any parking. We had to hike up the hill to the lodge and we were exhausted by the time we got there. We spent about 15 minutes getting Aaron oriented on the snowboard and then we went on the lift for Aaron's first time.

Can you believe the view from the chair lift? That is Lake Tahoe in the background.

This is the beginner hill where we spent our day.

This is Aaron trying to stay cheerful with the thumbs up after another nasty fall. He was definitely getting the hang of it by the end of the day.

Here we are enjoying the lunch break and our expensive food from the lodge. Can you tell that Aaron had a painful morning from the look on his face?


We love snowboarding and can't wait to go again!!!

We were able to get the key to the cabin from one of my mom's relatives so we went back to the cabin after snowboarding. We had a relaxing evening (after figuring out how to turn on the water and light the pilot light) and went to dinner at Carrow's and then we watched a movie. Sunday morning we slept in late, made cherry coke snow cones and built a snow man.





Then we watched another movie before we had to pack up and head back home. It was so fun and relaxing-we can't wait to go back!

Kayden

We had such a fun time when Anna, Chris, and Kayden came to visit the other week. Look at Anna's blog for details but here are some cute snapshots of Kayden.



Auntie Em and Kayden-this was the best one we could get with him smiling


We can't wait til they visit again!

Elder Don

Just thought I'd give you all a glimpse of where my brother Don is currently serving. It's called the Madeira Island, off the coast of Portugal, and he is in the area Camara de Lobos.
It makes me want to go on a long vacation. Too bad it's not a vacation at all for Don. But really, what better place to serve the Lord than this?





It's gorgeous! Here is a little of what he has to say about it.
"I'm really enjoying my time here on the Madeira...there are so many cool little things that you get to see as a resident on a tropical island. One of my favorite things is that it seems as though I skipped out on winter and rain. The weather is seriously perfect. I wear a short sleeve shirt everyday and we're going down to the beach today with the district for beach volleyball! The island is something to see. We have a bus pass and we ride often so I've actually seen about have of the island. Riding on the bus is one of my favorite things to do because the buses just wind
fast up and down the cliff's edges...it's fun because they FLY!"
Can't you just picture the busses flying?! They really are cliffs like Don describes.
More on the work.
"The work here is completely different and I think it is because the people are nicer and will listen to our message. It's really different in my area too beacause it's a new area. The people in Camara de Lobos have never seen the Elders before...that's not normal in Portugal. This past week was great. We had a family come to church then after we taught them a lesson in which we invited them to be baptized. They accepted and we're pumped!!! It will be camara de lobos' first baptism."
What an amazing experience! We are so proud of Don and the great work that he is a part of. It's already been almost 15 months, it's amazing how time flies. We love him and miss him but couldn't be more grateful for the blessing he is to our family and to the Lord. He is doing great and seems to be loving every minute!
If anyone wants to email him to say hi, comment and I'll send you his email address. I know he'd love to hear from everyone.

Blog Makeover

What do you think? Before or after? I thought it would be a refreshing change.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

I just finished reading "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and I just wanted to let you all know how much I loved it. It is the story of a doctor and his wife who is pregnant with twins. At birth a son is born perfectly normal and a daughter is born with down syndrome. The doctor, not wanting to burden his wife with the emotional pain of raising her, gives her to the nurse and tells her to take her to a care facility. The nurse, Caroline, cannot bring herself to leave her there and disappears with her to raise her as her own.
It follows both families lives and shows what that one split-second decision did to change so many lives drastically. I highly recommend it. Let me know if any of you decide to read it.
Also, what should my next book be?

The Blessings Have Been Poured Out...

Leaving Utah was hard because we had to leave behind our beloved Cafe Rio. If we didn't feel like going to busy Cafe Rio, we could always go up the street to Costa Vida, Cafe Rio's clone, with the same menu and divine taste.
Last night, as we ventured out of normal territory to go to the movies, we saw....

I couldn't accept at first that it would be the same Costa Vida as in Utah, so when we got home we looked it up online and it is!!!! The sweet pork salad is on the menu. We are so excited and are going to eat there today. When I called my mom to tell her about it she said, "I knew I had a good feeling about Roseville." If you didn't have an excuse to visit us before, you do now.