Happy Birthday to me!

Mom made me a penguin cake for my birthday!

Pretty freaking sweet huh?!

Playing with Uncle Nate and Uncle Doug

I can't decide who's having more fun, Nate and Doug or Lizzie and Grace. Either way, they sure do enjoy running around the house laughing!

The many faces of Gracie-Facie

If you can remember way back to last year, Robby and Jenny moved their family to New Zealand. Well, they moved back to the States! They're staying at Mom and Dad's while they find a car and get things figured out to move to Colorado Springs where Robby will run a clinic all by himself (Robby in charge...scary!). Lizzie and Grace are adorable and I've loved getting to spend time with them. Gracie loves to try scare me. Here's a series of pictures of one such adventure:

After she would growl at me and I'd react, she would just laugh! It was too cute! Isn't she just adorable??! I'm so happy that they are back in the States and I can more easily visit them.

Graduation!!

I graduated! Finally, after 5 years of college, the magical day of it all ending has happened! It was a grand day and I was able to share it with some of my favorite people, my parents. Here's some of my favorite pictures of the many Mom took. Enjoy :)

Kami, me, and Michelle

Me and Jake

Daddy and Me!!

Cindy and Me

Mommy and Me

:)

This snowman saved me from boredom during the speeches, given to me by a really good friend.

Mandy Jo got hitched

April 10, 2010 my best friend Amanda Kimball (aka Mandy Jo) became Amanda Wheat. She was beautiful, the groom was composed, and the cookie cake was delicious!

MJ and I at her bridal shower

I sometimes forget to zoom out....

Daniel and Amanda Wheat!

The Maid of Honor and the Bride

Aren't we cute?!

We had matchy-matchy shoes!

They rode away on a tandem bike. How awesome!

Katie the Superhero!

The Institute had another dance. This time the theme was Superheroes. It was so fun! We had a ton of people there and most everyone was dressed up. There was Two-face, the Penguin, Power Puff Girls, at least three Quailman, and so many others. But the best one was this one:

Me of course!

Cool, huh?

We had a photo area with a skyline backdrop and it was full the entire time. We put up signs saying "Pow!", "Ouch", "Bang", and my favorite - mostly cuz I came up with it :) - "Holy Awesome Dance Moves Batman!". It was a great turn out and I loved dancing the night away!

I love my life!

I had the most amazing weekend! I loved it!! Heck, the past month of weekends have been pretty much awesome! I've been hanging out with people from my ward just laughing, playing, dating, flirting, etc. and it's been so fun!

This past weekend was awesome because my friend Al came to town to visit!

You remember Al, the amazing woman who put up with being my Enrichment Counselor, one of my best friends, my go to person when I needed a good laugh, or some amazingly good food! Yep, her! She came down for the three day weekend mostly cuz she just missed Cedar and the amazing people lucky enough to live here.

We went out to breakfast Saturday. We were having so much fun talking and catching up that I think we sat at that table for a good hour after we had finished eating (I love that Cedar restaurants actually let you do that, instead of pushing you out the door). Then we decided to go shootin'. So we bought some bullets, earplugs, and some soda for our targets and headed out of town. Turns out, we're not very good shots, haha! We set out probably six or seven soda cans and we only hit three ('we' being the royal 'we' as in just Al. I didn't hit a thing!). Then we cleaned ourselves up and drove down to the St. George Temple for Stake Temple Night. I, not being endowed, just did baptisms while Al and Karrie went through a session with the stake. It was so nice to go the temple, I even enjoyed the almost two hours I had to wait for Al and Karrie to finish. I wandered around the Visitors Center and just enjoyed being on the temple grounds.

I didn't see Al again till Monday, she's popular down here and had to visit lots of people. We were trying to figure out what to do, when Al remembered that she forgot to get me my Christmas present.... a car wash (have I mentioned how much I love this girl?! Only she would think of something like that! And only I would be excited to have that be my present). So we hopped in my car and drove to the car washing place. The following pictures depict the car washing adventure:

The I heart Katie that Kayley wrote on my hood when I went up for her farewell in November.

Al scrubbing away at the dirt.

My car was too dirty for the automatic wash, it needed some TLC to get all the dirt off....

Haha! I love her!

Sadly, the dispenser that held the wipes to dry my car was broken. So my car is clean, it just has some water spots all over it :) Al was less than happy about that and she's already decided that next time she's bringing her car cleaning supplies and really getting it clean and pretty.

After cleaning the car, we still wanted to hang but didn't know exactly what to do, only that we wanted to be outside because it was a beautiful day. So we drove around town, with the windows rolled down and blaring music, just exploring. We happened upon this memorial site of all the wars (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korean, Iraq/Afghanistan) and the soldiers that have died fighting them. I had never seen it before and Al wanted to see it again, so we stopped to take a look.

Al next to the globe that shows were the major battles of WWII happened

My turn!

It was a really cool place, in a beautiful setting. We were there for a while just looking at the different things and talking. While we were there I kept flashing back to my Daddy-Daughter Date back in August. I kept thinking how Dad would enjoy visiting the memorial and that if he were to come visit me *hint, hint Daddy* I'd take him to see it. Course I'd have to brush up on my history before then so as not to have a repeat of the last Daddy-Daughter Date were I almost failed my history quiz :)

Chillin' on the bridge not far from the memorial site

Isn't Cedar gorgeous!?!??

We headed up the canyon for some more exploring. I pulled over to the side of the road at some random spot and we got out and played around in the snow for a bit.

It was so fun to have Al here! I love her! And to make the weekend even more amazing, I got to see Shelly and Jason last night too! Grandma and Grandpa Schofield took them up to the farm to play for a few weeks so Rach could have a break with only one kid to look after instead of three. They stopped in Cedar for an hour to let the kids get their wiggles out and so Cindy and I could see them. I was so excited that I left FHE early so as to not miss a minute with them. I pulled up just as they were getting out of their car. Jason, as soon as he saw me, tried to wiggle out of Grandma's arms, reaching for me and laughing. Then once he was in my arms he just snuggled up close to me and it just made my day! I love that kid! Too cute! Shelly was so excited to see us that she ran around the room a few times before settling down to give us a hug. I had gone shopping earlier that day and gotten them some Valentine's presents. When I gave them the presents, Shelly was so excited and would not put it down! Jason seemed preoccupied when I tried to give him his present, so I just held onto it for a bit. A few minutes later he came over to me carrying a basket full of toys and gave me the basket, saying "present!", then he grabbed his present. Apparently he felt he had to give me a present too :) I love those two! They are so adorable! I'm glad I got to see them, even though it wasn't for very long.