Oh, Idaho! (Part 2)

One of my favorite things about my weekend in Idaho was visiting the Rexburg temple.  The girls and I went first on Friday and took a couple of pictures (and soon after that was when I accidentally erased my SD card.)

This really is my new favorite temple. So beautiful.

Gorgeous girls

Late Friday night, I was emailing with Kim and I told her I was planning to go to the temple Saturday morning to do an endowment session and she asked if I was going with my favorite guy Greg.  The crazy thing is I hadn't even thought about asking him.  I'm so used to just doing everything alone, you know?  But I texted him at like midnight and he said he'd love to go (to the 9 AM session, in fact and we texted until 1 AM! Don't you love college life???)  Thank you, Kim, for the suggestion!  Greg's cousin Stephen plus their roommate Juan came with us.  It was such a treat to be in the temple with them.  I've known Greg since he was around 12 years old and I have loved watching him grow up.  He's just amazing and awesome.

Stephen, me and Greg.  

After the temple, I picked up the girls and we went to Bear World!  

The girls learned on this trip that I'm sort of obsessed with wildlife so getting to drive through a little park and see bears, elk, mountain goats and even a moose is really my idea of a good time. I won't bore you with a bunch of animal pictures but will include this one because this was quite possibly the coolest, most Zen bear you will ever see in your whole entire lives. 

Seriously.  Can you believe that guy?  He was so awesome.  Next we went into the gift shop and petting zoo and took all sort of fun pictures (all the while, talking in our Southern accents, remember.)

 

Nikki & Emily.  Seriously - how can you look at this picture and not laugh?

 

Sarah looks like she was trying to scare Cindy and succeeded!

After Bear World, we went back to campus and got Kristina.  We may or may not have driven around town with Sarah in the back of the car.

We got some Creamery chocolate milk and then went back to the temple and took a bunch of pictures. It was super windy (love that about Rexburg...um...not) but I got this beautiful shot of the girls.

I still can't believe how blessed I am to have these girls in my life (as well as the others who weren't with us that weekend...you know who you are!)  They truly fill my heart with joy and make me forget that I'm kind of old.

 

After the temple, we went to dinner with Greg and Stephen at Pizza Pie Cafe again.  

Love him.

Stephen makes the best faces.

After dinner, we took Kristina home and then went back to Sarah & Emily's apartment.  We hugged good bye and I of course, started to cry.  I'm such a baby. (Thanksgiving will be here before we know it!)

Sunday morning, Nikki, Cindy and I went to church with my friends, the Brownings.  

Sherry's husband was my bishop while I was YW president and it was so fun to get to see their new home and to see how much their kids have grown in the two years since they moved away.  I love their youngest son, Ryan.  He was one of my favorites when I was in Primary.

After church, the girls changed into road trip clothes (please note Cindy's shoes.)

Then we were off.  It was such a long drive but the girls were good and stayed awake for most of it.  Nikki had her laptop so we watched (I listened of course - I WAS driving after all) Despicable Me and 17 Miracles.  When we got close to Spokane, I texted my friends Richard and Sue to see if they wanted to feed us and let us use their bathroom and of course they did.  

Sue was out of town but Richard (who used to be my home teacher) put out a spread that she would have been proud of -- sandwiches, salads, juice, and all sorts of healthy food.  It was just what we needed to make the last five hours fly by even though it made me wish, again, that Richard and Sue hadn't moved so far away (notice a trend...my friends are all moving away from me.)

All in all, a fantastic trip filled with fun and laughter...so much laughter.  I want to try and remember some of the funny things we said like "I've got to pew" but it's after midnight and I'm brain dead.  Loved the trip, the time with the girls, our fun memories, eating at Costa Vida, and on and on.  I'll be ready to go back when the snow melts, girls.  Let's plan another trip now!

Oh, Idaho! (Part 1)

I took a quick, four-day road trip to Idaho last month and had the most fun ever.  Cindy, Nikki and I decided to go to Rexburg and visit our girls who were going to school there.  As you know, I love a road trip. It was a lot longer/slightly painful trip on the way home but overall, so much fun. Nikki wrote a very fun recap here. 

Before we left, I said a prayer with the girls that "we" would stay awake while we were driving (we meaning me) but my prayer worked great because both girls stayed awake the entire 12+ hour drive over.  Um, imagine how happy the best car sleeper ever (aka Cindy) was about my prayer???  But hey, at least I had people to talk to, right?

We stopped in Spokane at Hobby Lobby to get crafty stuff (friendship bracelets and knitting.) 

I also got this super cute picture of the girls wearing the latest in fancy apron fashion.

We listened to parts of a couple of audio books (Hunger Games and the Help) but didn't finish either of them.  Apparently, I need to read Hunger Games...but let's just say I couldn't get into the audio version.  We also tried to spot wildlife (I saw bears - yes really, deer, elk, antelope, birds of prey.)  Oh and we took pictures of every letter on a mountain we saw. We don't do the letters on mountains thing here for some reason.

And here is my windshield like one hour after cleaning it.  Sick.

We got to Rexburg late Thursday night and went immediately to Emily & Sarah's apartment to hug them and drop off Nikki.  Cindy and I then drove to Rigby to stay with my friends, the Brownings.  They fed us and we went to bed.

Friday morning, we got up and drove back to Rexburg to get the girls.  We went to lunch at Pizza Pie Cafe...so yummy.  Our waiter needs to improve his picture taking skillz as the only group shots we got were blurry.

I went to Ricks College when I was the girls' age so I made them go with me to see my old dorm.  They now have names instead of numbers but here's me, so excited, in front of what was formerly known as Dorm 2 Apt 62.  Memories...

And reenacting that fateful night when we climbed the wall because we came back after curfew (and subsequently got caught.)

We then ran into our darling Carolina coming back from class and got these awesome shots in the parking lot outside her apartment.  LOVE THESE!

Carolina, Emily, Nikki & Sarah looking fierce

Cindy would only join in for the non-model shot ;).  I love this photo and these girls SO much!

These girls know how to work the camera.

These darling girls love very few things more than they love a drive so that's what we did.  We drove out to Sugar City (my favorite name for a town EVER!)

We also started talking in Southern accents during this trip and whenever we saw cute boys or hay we would say "haaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy" in our very best drawls.  We pretty much talked like that the entire weekend and I still catch myself talking like that from time to time (try it - it's fun.)

Idaho is so beautiful - it poured rain the entire morning and then turned out so nice the rest of the trip.

Sarah had some fun with the camera and got this awesome FB profile shot.

The other girls decided to follow suit:

I'm a little delayed in my trip report because after two days of fun, I accidentally deleted everything off my SD card.  Were you aware that there are ways to get everything back when you do that?  Well, I wasn't.  I was so sad but the girls and I decided we would squeeze in another drive on Saturday and try to recreate a bunch of the photos that were lost.  Once I got home, however, my friend Paul was able to recover my lost photos!  So if you're wondering why we're in two different outfits on seemingly the same day...that's why.

We drove out to the Teton Dam site and stopped on the way at this weird R2D2 thing on a potato farm.  I mean, what is that thing anyway?  The next day it was humming and sort of scary...we didn't stand as close that day.

Then we got this awesome jumping shot at the dam site.

Sarah and me communing with the potatoes.

Okay, this trip report is getting entirely too long and I'm still only on day 2.  Can you tell by all of the fun pics what a fabulous trip this was?? Come back tomorrow for the stunningly beautiful Rexburg temple, BEAR WORLD, and the drive home, ya'll!

Where's the dream for me?

Have I told you I'm going to Disneyland?  For the first time ever?  Yep.  I'm going.  Today.  In about four hours, in fact.  I'm beyond excited.  I was still awake at 2:30 AM (yes I'm a child) and then awake at 7:30, ready to go.  I'm going with two dear friends I met at work 23 years ago, Michelle and DeAnne.  I can't wait to walk into the park for the very first time, to see our fancy hotel, to have breakfast with some princesses and more and more.

While I was packing/cleaning, I found a notebook with notes from past Sunday talks, general conferences, etc. I found the notes from a talk Sister Julie Beck gave when she visited my area in January 2009.  I blogged about it here.  

I don't want to rehash everything I already blogged about but as I paged through my notebook, the following things popped out at me:

The Lord did not promise us "the dream" in this life. He promised us an experience and some are harder than others.  It's okay to still want "the dream" but if you don't have it, acknowledge the hurt and go on.

This world does not believe in families.

Magnify the gifts we have instead of wishing what we don't have.

Write down miracles that happen.

Try to get back that feeling we had when we were three years old and we were the most important, beautiful and "all that" girl in the world whenever we walked into a room.

Don't underestimate my power to receive personal revelation.

Where's "the dream" for me? How do you get "the dream?"  Have an experience.  Sometimes they're pleasant...sometimes they're not.  

I needed to find that notebook today.  I needed to be reminded of the things I mentioned above. I love how Heavenly Father works.  He knows.  He always knows.  

I really do love my life.  Despite the glaring omissions, it's pretty dang good to be me.  

And, hello!  I'm going to Disneyland!

A photo update

I think 2011 is the year of bad blogging.  I'm giving up on being a good blogger again this year - maybe I'll be better next year...

Here are some things I've been doing since I posted last (not including my super fun Idaho trip...that's a blog post all in itself.)  Here's a list - not necessarily in chronological order.  Remember, I'm bad at blogging this year.  Bad bloggers don't do anything in order.

I got released from my calling and put back into the stake YW presidency as 1st counselor.  I will miss serving with these fabulous women more than I can even say.

I'm very excited about the new ladies I'm working with.  They are incredible, smart and talented and I have much to learn from them.  I'll be over YW Camp in my new role and that makes me happier than I can even say.  Oh and one more bonus?  I don't have to take notes at meetings anymore.  Hallelujah.  I loathe taking notes for anyone other than myself.

I spoke at the baptism of my adorable and amazing friend Leah.

I love that I was the first person Leah texted to tell that her dad had finally given her permission to get baptized after years of waiting.  She called me a few days later to ask me to give the Holy Ghost talk and of course I said yes.  Leah and I bonded at camp last year and I love her so much.  Apparently, I embarrassed her during my talk because apparently I mentioned a boy that she may or may not think is cute.  Apparently.  But whatevs.  She'll get over it...someday, right, Leah?

I said goodbye to some of my most favorite girls in the world...

Emily, Kristina and Sarah left for school and I miss them TONS already.  Since I'm no longer their camp leader, I gave them permission to start calling me by my first name and some of them have taken me up on it. 

I said goodbye to Bridget too...sniff, sniff. (she was the funniest about the first name thing - she called me Jeanelle like 20 times in about a three minute span of time.)  

I'm glad these girls are growing up and having fun new adventures...I just wish their fun new adventures weren't so dang far away.  Sigh.

Our stake does a day of service in honor of 9/11.  I worked with some good friends for a few hours ripping out blackberries near a river in my town.  I got totally scratched up but it was a wonderful day. Here's me and my cute friend Cody.

We had a stake dance last night.  I don't necessarily always want to spend one of my oh so busy Saturday nights at a youth dance but the kids I know and love never fail to make it fun and memorable for me.  Last night's was no exception.  Nikki and Cindy came to visit and brought me a slurpee - yum.  They are both too old to go to the dances now but I love that they come to hang out with me.

Darling Leah (see above) asked for my keys when I first got there and I handed them over without a thought.  Silly me.  She, Abbie and Emily are kind of the queens of the heart attack and look what they did to my car:

I didn't get a picture of the inside but they filled it with balloons too.  We're missing Emily but here's a pic of me with Leah and Abbie.  Love, love, love these cute girls!

Okay, and finally...the planking.  Have you heard about planking??? It was also depicted hilariously on The Office this week.  If you don't know what it is, basically, you lie face down wherever you are and voila, you're planking.

So last night at the dance, we (the adults) were waiting for all of the kids to get picked up (don't get me started on this topic just please promise me you'll pick your kids up on time from dances okay??)  and I came outside to check how many kids were still left waiting and saw this.

That's Leah, Abbie, Emily plus two cute boys, Brooks and Eric planking on my car! The boys' mom is in the presidency with me so they are stuck there until we can leave so they were looking for ways to entertain themselves while they waited. It was so hilarious.  I made them freeze long enough to get a photo because maybe I'm a better blogger than I thought...

Later this week...my Idaho trip recap!  

I'm not really a supermodel...

My sister Jaylene gave me a photo shoot with her friend (and mine) Andrea for my birthday. 

I waited to schedule it until this past Friday because I wanted to be done with Trek and Camp and I was hoping to have a little bit of a tan too. (Yeah, yeah...I'm vain.)

I'll get the official photos next week but go to Andrea's blog to get a preview (she's so dang fast!)  Andrea is so fun to work with because she totally puts you at ease, is completely confident in what she's doing and she is so good at getting the perfect shot.

We traipsed through a big ol' stinging-nettles-filled field to get the best light.

Jaylene took some behind the scenes pics

and of course...photo-bombed too (she does that SO well.)

Thanks, Jaylene for the great b-day gift and thank you Andrea for making me feel like a model for an hour.  It was so fun! 

Camp 2011

I'm so behind...gah. 

Young Women Camp was amazing, as it always is.  It was an interesting experience this year in that I wasn't the leader over the 2nd year Youth Camp Leaders but instead, I'm in the Stake YW presidency.

Stake YW Presidency: Mel, Lisa, and Karla

I was also the pseudo-camp secretary because the previous one got a new calling a few months ago.  So in addition to doing my stake stuff, I also did stuff like collecting receipts, getting the camp booklets printed, took the headcount each night AND I had to be the camp photographer.

YW camp director, Meesa

Can I share something with you?

I almost despised being camp photographer.  Why? 

Ohhhh, lots of reasons.  (Tell me SOMEONE said that like Savannah in "Savannah Smiles." Please?)

Reason number one:  I prefer to take pictures when I want to, not because I have to. 

Anytime I was in the middle of doing a million other things, someone would call me on the walkie talkie and say, "Jeanelle, come get a photo of this!" Then I'd have to drop everything and run to take a picture of the sun coming through the trees and then try to remember what I was doing before I got pulled away. My brain just doesn't work like a real photographer's.  And that's okay...

Not a terrible nature shot - go figure.

Reason number two: I'm kind of a crummy photographer.  Case in point: this photo of one of the levels.  Notice my friend Lisa off to the right?  Yeah, I probably shouldn't have had her in the photo since she wasn't in that level.  Especially since this is the picture that each girl and leader in that level got to take home with them to help them remember their wonderful year at camp.  Instead they are probably saying, "Why is Sister Clement in our ding dang picture?"

2nd level campers with an extra.  So embarrassing.

Reason number three:  I like taking pictures of people I know and love or of people whose parents I know and love.  It's actually hard to take pictures of people you don't know well or don't know at all.  You think "did I get a picture of her already?"  Or you feel guilty for taking the millionth picture of the Robinsons because you know and love them so much.

My other family: Becca, Steve & Emily

But want to know what I loved about camp this year?

1. I loved meeting this girl.



BFFs

 Sharon was our craft lady and besides having a PhD in crafts, she was super fun and we clicked right away.  Love.  Her.  (even though I'm old enough to be her, ugh, MOTHER.) We also established the first ever gum wall at camp (uh, YEAH we did!)  It was a hit.  (Hopefully some of you have seen the Seattle gum wall...)
 

Oh and I have to post this blurry photo because it makes me laugh every time...Sharon and I were going to pose like this, belly to belly, in our stake photo but chickened out. Oh how I loved laughing with her, Melanie, Lisa and everyone else in the stake level that week.  Camp completely fills my bucket every year.

2. I loved being a Stake person instead of being in charge of a level. 

Mel, Mindy, Elizabeth and Quinae - we all shot guns!

Don't get me wrong - the last four years were the best ever and I would go back to doing that job in a heartbeat but this year was a nice change.  I loved that I had time to actually talk to people. 

darling Leah

I loved that I had time to get to know girls in all of the levels.  I loved that I had a TON less stress. I also loved being able to just LOVE the 2nd YCLs instead of telling them what to do all the time. So nice!

Lindsey, Jenn & Paige

I also REALLY loved wearing wings (we were fairy godmothers.) And seriously? I think I'd like to incorporate this particular hairstyle a bit more in my every day life. 

the stake board on our way to the polar bear dip

3. I loved doing something that pulled me out of my comfort zone.  I can't go into details about it because it's kind of a secret thing and I know there are camp girls who read my blog...but I was grateful to be asked to do something that was difficult for me.  I had an amazing spiritual experience because of it and I will be forever grateful for that "stretch."

4. I loved bonding with this simply beautiful girl. 

Lovely Lilly

I mentioned her here in my trek blog but Lilly and I made a soul-to-soul connection at camp.  We frequently would look at each other and just start crying.  I know with everything that I am that she and I were supposed to meet on trek and we were supposed to be at camp together. I'm so grateful she came to camp - she had such a great experience being a 2nd YCL and she was so good for the younger girls.  I'm so grateful to Heavenly Father for putting special girls like Lilly in my life.  I love getting that taste of being a mom during that week at camp...I'm so blessed.