Hope's Happenings

Goodbye Bodie

2011-09-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

Last August, I drove up to Salt Lake area with my brother to look at a dog, because he wanted to get one since he had his own house. He was a happy, energetic puppy that needed a good place to stay. He came to live at our house, and he spent his time half upstairs and half downstairs. It took him awhile to get used to everything, but he always made everyone happy and was good company. He loved to play with tennis balls, sticks and anything else he could find (like socks).

Bodie was full of love and always had plenty of puppy kisses to go around. He loved being around other people and was only loud if he was left alone by himself. He loved to cuddle on the couch with anyone who would let him, and was really obedient and loyal.

On Friday when I got home from work, I went into the backyard and found him lying in the middle of the yard, dead. We're not really sure what happened. A friend who is a vet looked at his body and said that heart conditions usually run in beagles, and so that might have been it. (Signsof heart disease in beagles ) He was going to turn 2 in January.

I don't know exactly what happened, all I know is that I miss him a lot.

Goodbye, Bodie. I love you.

Cedar Mesa and Pueblos

2011-05-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went out and hiked down in the four corners area of Utah, where we were at was probably about 100 miles from the closest town. We drove down and camped late Friday night, then woke up on Saturday and did 18 miles round trip. Nate's friend knew of a couple ruins, petroglyphs and rock art panels, so we got to look at a lot of really neat Pueblo ruins.

Nate's friend volunteers with an archaeological society, so he's been to a lot of different sites in the area. Apparently when the Pueblos left this region, they left behind pots and all sorts of other things planning to come back some day.

The swirls on this are supposed to represent migration. I'm not too sure what everything else represents.

Elk.

Check out the hand prints above the doorway.

Bigger picture.

Pottery shards with some arrowheads. There were also corn cobs all over the place.

Nate inside one of the ruins.

Here I am having fun exploring.

Nate's friends. The guy on the right brought his camera and took a lot of pictures.

This is from the large rock panel that we went to see, the moving man is pretty unusual for puebloan art.

Quail.

This one is called owl face. Creepy.

This was our end goal, a really neat 2-story ruin on a rock ledge. If Nate's friend didn't know where it was, then we probably would have walked by on the canyon floor without even knowing!

Cactus flowers.

We saw a lot of lizards.

This morning we drove to the end of the mesa top. It felt like we were at the end of the earth with the big cliffs and deep canyons.

All in all we had a really fun time exploring southern Utah!

National Park Week

2011-05-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

We decided to go down and do a 3 day backpacking trip in Canyonlands during National Park Week.

It was really nice because we got in for free! The weather was kind of crazy, really intense wind and then it changed from 80 degrees one day to 30-40 degrees the next day. That's the desert for you.

Alcove Springs - on our hike down into the canyon.

We found a fish in the desert!

Big Cliffs.

Nathan really loves breakfast.

The spires behind me are called Moses and Zeus. We hiked up to the base of them.

Ready to hike!

Nathan found me the perfect seat. :)

After the 3 day trip, we took a break and hung out in Moab for a day. It was pretty crazy there because it was also the annual Jeep Safari, don't think we had ever seen so many jeeps. We planned on going out and doing one more 1 night hike, but the temperature was still about 30-40 degrees with rain. So instead we drove through arches and did a couple little hikes before heading home.

Double arch!

Hockey!!!

2011-04-10T17:09:00.000-07:00

I had my last hockey tournament for the season this weekend and it was a blast! Even though we had several late games and I'm a little sore, it was definitely a lot of fun.

The game was about an hour and a half away, but luckily Nathan's grandparents let us stay at their house :)

Our first game was Friday night and I scored our first goal on a breakaway. In the game on Saturday afternoon, I got a penalty for tripping a girl (Nathan was really excited because he's wanted me to get a penalty all season). Saturday night I scored another goal on a breakaway.

In our championship game Sunday morning I knocked in a goal assisted by one of my team member's to win the game.

All in all I had 3 goals, 1 penalty, 4/4 wins and a gold medal!

This is a picture of our team from a different tournament, I don't have pictures from this tournament yet :)

Cruising the Caribbean

2010-10-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

Nathan and I took a cruise ship to the Bahamas for 4 nights the week after we were married. We had a lot of fun snorkeling and going to all of the different events on the ship, as well as sight seeing some of the different forts in Nassau.

Our cruise ship.

Nathan is ready to go snorkeling!

Nathan wins the prize for best underwater photo. We had a lot of fun taking pictures and videos underwater.

Some more fish.

Formal night on the boat. Did I mention that Nathan ordered two meals every night at dinner? Free food all the time makes him very happy.

We also stopped at St. Augustine on the way back. They shot off a cannon. It was really neat.

Married!

2010-10-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

Nathan and I were sealed in the Columbia, SC temple July 17, 2010. We had a wonderful party at the Inn at Middleton Place the same night. A lot of our family came to celebrate with us and we had a wonderful time! I'm so glad that I decided to give him another chance, I really love Nathan a lot and I am happy that I have the chance to spend my life with him. :)

Silver Creek Falls

2010-06-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

On Memorial Day, we went to Silver Creek Falls and hiked at least 5 miles. The neat thing about this beautiful state park though is that there are over 10 waterfalls in the park. Just about every mile we saw a different water fall. It was beautiful. The brush was all very green and there were tons of beautiful floowers along the roadside. It was a great day and a great hike! We got a little muddy, but that made it all the more fun!

Reconstructive Surgery

2010-06-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

This Humboldt squid was caught off the coast over 2 years ago. The last 2 years, the researchers here at OIMB have spent time dissecting and learning more about the anatomy of this type of squid. They recently finished up their studies. To preserve the specimen, a team a plastic surgeons was hired to perform reconstructive surgery so that the squid would look perfect in it's preserved state.

The local newspaper covered the story. A copy of the story can be found here:
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Plastic-surgeons-stitch-up-Oregon-squid-95285704.html

Tidepools

2010-06-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

Nathan came to visit me over Memorial Day weekend. He flew in on Thursday and drove down and spent the night in the Boys' Dorms. We woke up really early to go walk around in the tidepools the next morning. It was really fun, well besides the slippery seaweed covered rocks.

After a couple tries, Nathan finally figured out the trick to grabbing a seastar. Here he's holding Pisaster ochraceous, the ochre seastar.

This is where we went to look at tidepools. It's called Sunset Bay, but you can see the old lighthouse in the background.

We both really love the Oregon Coast!

Although I really liked the tidepools and the seal that we saw swimming in the water, I think Nathan's favorite part was all of the rocks that had eroded into these really neat patterns.

Seaworld is in my backyard

2010-05-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

It won't let me upload my video, but I will very soon.

Creativity

2010-04-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

Save the Date! Official wedding day.

2010-02-06T22:33:00.000-08:00

Here is our link to an online save the date.

http://www.mypunchbowl.com/save_the_date/5aa9b4e336391b068ffc

Christmas Lights

2009-12-27T22:53:00.000-08:00

During the middle of finals week, Nate decided that we were going to go 'sledding' at Rock Canyon. However, I knew it was kind of icy and told him that it probably wasn't going to work out. After a long battle where he finally convinced me to do what he wanted and after he gave me a dozen roses for a hard week, we walked up to look at the snow on the sledding hill when I saw this!

I said yes and apologized for giving him such a hard time. We're planning on getting married tentatively July 17th in South Carolina!

Birthday Surprises

2009-12-27T21:27:00.000-08:00

The day started out with an early wake up call and a good breakfast with the fam (and Nate) at Callie's Cafe. If you haven't tried their killer hashbrowns, you need to. They are amazing. I opened presents at breakfast, and then went home to take a nap. I was planning on sleeping in.

Later in the day I got a haircut and then went out to dinner at a nice restaurant with Nathan in the dress that he got me for my birthday. I really liked the dress, which is good because my sister had to try on a bunch when she went shopping with him. Thanks!

Erin also made me a cake and we had a small party when I finally got back to the apartment that night. It was great! (Rob dared me to eat the candle)

Thanksgiving

2009-12-27T16:22:00.000-08:00

This year instead of going home for Thanksgiving, we all stayed out in Utah. Rob deep fried a turkey and everyone else cooked the rest of the food. It was really good!

We also had lunch with the cousins before the Utah game. Good times.

Halloween

2009-11-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

Our ward had a halloween party on Friday night with about 8 other wards so we had lots of food, lots of good music and lots of people. It was pretty great. About an hour before we left Nate and I had no costumes but with help from Hannah and her roommates, we put something together pretty quick. My shirt says "shawty wanna thug" and Nate is wearing a couple big chains. It was great.

Flaming Gorge

2009-10-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend Rob, Nate and I drove over to Vernal to visit Christine and Josh. Saturday we headed over to Flaming gorge to go hiking - we hiked 8 miles along the river and it was really neat. The water was really clear and we saw all sorts of trout and things. Rodrigo (the dog) came too. Josh and Rob had to hitchhike a ride back to our car at the end, luckily the made it back alive.

cable crochet

2009-10-08T22:19:00.000-07:00

Last Christmas I had my Mom teach me how to crochet, but I quickly forgot how over Winter semester. Fortunately, crochet and knit hats were very popular while I was in Oregon so I taught myself how to crochet again. I've made several hats since then. This is the latest one that I've finished. It was a bit more complicated (with front post and back post crochets) but it looks really cool because it has the twisted cable effect. It took a whole skein of yarn to make but it's really thick and warm. I made most of this during General Conference over the weekend - it was nice to have something to do with my hands to keep me awake. :)

A link to the pattern can be found here: http://www.rheatheylia.com/index.php?page=patterns&id=5

Instructions to learn how to crochet can be found here: http://learntocrochet.lionbrand.com/

Hundred Push-ups

2009-09-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

One of my friends recently posted about the "One Hundred Push-up Challenge." The idea really intrigued me and after reading through their website, I decided to use their program - but with a twist. Instead of doing push-ups, I am going to use my pull-up bar (Iron Gym) instead. The most I've ever been able to do for pull-ups is about 10, and I really want to increase my strength in that area and this program is the perfect way to go about it!
So, if you too want to increase your strength but don't really want to go to the gym, check out the hundred push up challenge.

Back to Utah

2009-06-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

Kayla and I decided to take the scenic route and drive back through California. It was a pretty eventful drive. Not only is the Oregon coast beautiful, but we also ran into a couple of dinosaurs at the prehistoric gardens and saw bigfoot in the forests of Northern California. We stopped overnight in Reno, the biggest little city in the World! It was great. Now I'm back in Utah, and M and I get to hang out for the next couple weeks and play. It should be fun.A view of the Oregon coast. Isn't it beautiful?

Look I found some dinosaurs!

A long neck dinosaur.

The redwoods in Northern California.

Bigfoot exists!

Reno, the biggest little city in the World!!

Yay! We're excited to hang out this week.

Sand Dunes and Shipwrecks

2009-06-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

Remember that one time when we found a shipwreck and piles of driftwood and built our own fort? Yeah, it was pretty awesome. Just like Oregon, and the rest of my trip. When we had some free time between writing a 15 page paper we took a trip to the beach, found a shipwreck and then played at the dunes. Did I mention we found a dead sea lion on the beach too? There were several vultures eating it, but this one was a pretty recent find because it still had it's head. Apparently in Oregon they cut the heads off of washed up seals and sea lions because they want the skulls. Gross, I know.

After carrying her knitting 3 miles down the beach, the first thing Amy did at the shipwreck was nestle in and knit.

Bird tracks across the sand.

The dead sea lion with the huge holes where the vultures were feeding.

Umpqua Lighthouse. Love it.

Becky walking across the dunes. We tried sandboarding on lunch trays, but it didn't work.

Mudflats, our last official fieldtrip

2009-06-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

Our last official field trip was to the mudflats. It was a good thing that we all had hip boots for this trip because things definitely got a little messy with all of the mud. We did find a lot of really cool things here though.

This is the burrow of a clam or a shrimp. I'm not sure which one, but shrimp dig tunnels in the mud and clams leave holes at the top of the water to keep the air supply.

Here's an example of one of the tunnel digging shrimp, Callianassa. This one is a female. You can tell because it's holding a big ball of eggs.

Here's the bent nose clam, Macoma nasuta, probing it's foot into the mud so that it can dig and bury itself back in the mud.

This jelly fish got stuck on the mud. Too bad for him. He sure does look neat though.

This is a worm that is sticking out it's proboscis. The proboscis is kind of like sticking out part of it's esophogus. It uses it to dig and to catch prey.

This clam has a drill hole in the shell. It was most likely drilled and eaten by a moon snail.

Here's me with my shovel and hip boots. I love digging in the mud.

I dug up a clam, but wasn't careful enough because I broke the shell. I did dig one up though!

Boat trip 2

2009-06-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

The second boat trip we took wasn't as crowded because Dr. B's family wasn't on the boat with us. We took off to the open ocean and trawled along the bottom off the coast a few miles south of Cape Arago. We love being on the boat!

What did we catch in the trawl?

Look! Look what I caught! Isn't it neat?

I caught a basket star (a relative of the sea star that has branching arms)

Several sea cucumbers, a couple bat stars, some crabs, and some scallops.

Here's a good view of the inside of a scallop. Neat, huh?

I love the docks.

2009-06-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

I love the docks. There are lots of things to be found there. Like cranky sea lions who bark at the fishermen. Or huge anemones and barnacles that are so big they HAVE to be mutants. It's great.

Here is a picture of the docks in general.

Fisherman's wharf, where you can buy lots of huge crabs and other cool things.

A floating dock. If you hang off the side you can see all sorts of things growing on the side of the dock.

A huge barnacle that has it's cirri extended. The cirri are the feather like things coming up out of the barnacle. They are used to collect food from the water.

A nudibranch (Acanthodoris) that I found on the floating dock.

A live sand dollar. Yes, they are real animals. They bury themselves in the sand and filter food out of the water. We caught these sand dollars at the beach for use in our development project.

Emerita, the mole crab. It buries itself in the sand. We caught them on a trip to the beach.

I'm on a boat!

2009-06-05T18:08:00.001-07:00

We took a trip on the boat yesterday. It was really cold and rainy, and Dr. B had half of his family on the boat as well, but it was still fun.

This is the Rescue Mate throw bag. In case anyone falls over, you can throw it to them.

Kayla and I are really excited to be on a boat.

We pulled a trawl off the back of the boat for 10 minutes or so and came up with a lot of stuff. Brent is currently pulling things out of the net.

Look I caught a crab! Along with the trawl, we did a plankton tow and collected all sorts of small plankton and got to look at it under microscopes and draw pictures. Yipee!

This is a small copepod. I found it in the microscope, and managed to take a picture. He doesn't like light very much!

Development

2009-05-31T18:36:00.001-07:00

The last week we started a new project - fertilizing sea urchin and sand dollar eggs and then following the development of the eggs and embryos. As cool as it is, this project came with late night hours and shifts around the clock to watch the development because we have to take a picture of each stage and then draw it. Needless to say, I haven't slept very much in the last week. I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night. Here is what you would see though:

Here is an example of a blastua swimming around. It doesn't have a mouth yet, but it does have cilia and moves all over the place. Right now we are at the larval stage but I don't have a picture of the larvae with me. I'll post one when I can get it.

Recent Finds

2009-05-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

Here are some cool things that I've seen lately:

If you look on the side of a dock, this is typically what you will find. The white things are sea anemones, while the orange thing in the middle is actually a barnacle covered in coral. The wispy things coming out of the barnacle are it's cirri, which it uses to feed.

This is a close up of Henricia, the blood star. Look how cool it's skin looks!

This big red thing in the picture is a gumboot chiton (Cryptochiton stelleri) They are very easy to spot in the rocky intertidal zone.

Epiactis Prolifera - This is a small sea anemone that loves shady areas. It is a brooding anemone, so it cares for it's young on the mother's skirt. If you look close you can see some babies on the skirt of this anemone.

The red spot in the tube is actually a worm. Polychaeate worms make calcareous tubes and come out to feed.

This is a limpet crawling over the surface of a rock. You can see his antennae.

This is a sand flea. I don't have the scientific name on hand, but these critters come out at dusk to feed on decaying seaweed. They are everywhere! I always feel like I'm getting attacked.

This is a sea star (Pisaster ochraeus) that is regenerating an arm. Sea stars are pretty good at regeneration.

Crater Lake

2009-05-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

For Memorial Day weekend, we decided to take a break from school work and drive out to Crater Lake National Park, this huge, pristine lake in an old volcanic crater. It was a great trip - from beautiful scenery to the our adventures at the hotel in Klamath Falls, it was definitely well worth it.
We also made a trip to Bandon, and plan to return to go to the Walk through Wild Animal Safari.

Sea Stars and Wal-mart

2009-05-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took a class field trip to Cape Arago. The purpose of this trip was to collect sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) so that we can use their gametes and watch the eggs develop next week along with our sand dollars. I really liked this trip because it felt like this was the first time that we were actually in the tide pools. There were different things everywhere I turned, from Orange and Purple sea stars (Pisaster ochraeus) to small tide pool johnny fish (oligocottus maculosus). We even found a couple of pycnopodia sea stars (pycnopodia helianthoides) which are very large and have lots of legs.

Here are some photos. By the way I put in really neat descriptions that don't show up on the photos, check it out by clicking on them. If I have time I'll change it:

Today we took a trip to Wal-mart. We were there for 3.5 hours. It was a very long trip. I don't like Wal-mart very much - but we did find ways to entertain ourselves in the aisles!

Cape Arago and pinnipeds

2009-05-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

Cape Arago apparently is a breeding ground for two different types of sea lions and seals. They are definitely loud! Although I couldn't get close enough to take a good picture, they did have a nice board depicting the seals.
I took the time during our excursion today to take lots of pictures for my photo journal - luckily this time I managed not to slip and fall.
Another view of the cape.

A hermit crab with the shell of the snail Littorina planaxis. Hermit crabs live inside old snail shells. We found tons of them today!

The snail Littorina planaxis on the rockweed Fuchus vesiculosus.

The things in the foreground of the picture are gooseneck barnacles (Pollicipes polynerus). The stuff that looks like bugs coming out of them is actually called cirri, and is part of the barnacle. It's what they use to filter particles out of the surf. The black stuff in the background are mussels (Mytilus californianus).

Some more scenery. It's so pretty here! I love the rocks and water everywhere.

A Walk in the Woods... and the mud!

2009-05-17T21:55:00.000-07:00

Sunday was stake conference which happened to be 2 hours away, so instead of going to Church we took a 2 hour hike at the South Slough Estuarine Reserve, a mix of Oregonian forest and salt marsh.
We ended up taking a 2 hour hike after taking a brief shortcut through the mud, but it was worth it.
The seagrass shown here is also very important to the ecology of many marine animals - the seagrasses in estuaries often act as nurseries for marine animals.
Look how green everything is!

the secret tunnel

2009-05-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

We decided to take a hike to the secret tunnel. Although I didn't find anything for my photo journal, it was definitely an adventure. There were a lot of slips and falls and I broke my sandals. The best fall of the day was when I tried to climb a slippery rock, but then just slid right into the pool at the bottom. That gave me the idea to 'slide' down the rock. When we got back to the dorms, we were all soaked but it was definitely worth it. Not to mention the beautiful scenery!

Stranded Seal Pup

2009-05-12T16:31:00.001-07:00

Today instead of having an afternoon lecture, we took a class trip to the OIMB beach - a 5 minute walk from campus. In addition to the anemones, barnacles, and snails that I photographed, there was also a seal pup stranded on the beach. Although he was really cute, he was also really thin, shivering, and all by himself! After awhile, he felt like there were too many of us and took off.
Here are some other things I identified on the beach:
Nucella caniculata - a dogwhelk. It is a carnivorous snail that feeds on mussels and barnacles.

This is another type of snail, although I'm not sure exactly which one.

This is anthopleura xanthogrammica - the giant green sea anemone.

Oregon

2009-05-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

For spring term, I am taking classes in Oregon! All of my classes are through BYU, but I'm on a small 'study-abroad' to Coos Bay, OR where I am staying at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology with several other BYU students.
After a long drive here on Wednesday and Thursday, I finally made it. I did run into some interesting sights on the way here though - while driving through the Columbia River Gorge I saw a helicopter pull 4 men up into the copter. It was pretty neat. So neat, in fact, that I decided to take a video.

I've also been to the beach almost everyday since I've been here. It may be cold, but the scenery is absolutely stunning!

We have to make a photo journal of sea creatures for class (100 photos total) so I will try to upload the photos I use for my journal here and post what they are throughout the term.

Life Dreams

2009-01-28T21:49:00.000-08:00

Ever since I was 7 years old, I have wanted to play hockey. I was kind of small when I was younger (and still am) so my Mom didn´t let me play. So after a good rousing game of pond hockey in Minnesota over Christmas break, I decided to take a BYU hockey class. I had such a blast the first day of class that I decided to join a local Women´s league hockey team. Basically, I am loving this semester. Hockey at least 2 days a week, gymnastics class, training for a half marathon, orchestra, and marine biology; I´m not sure if it could get any better!!

Maple Canyon

2008-10-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

I decided to take another camping trip, but this time I went with the Outdoor Adventure Club. I wasn´t sure what to expect, but I ended up having a great time. We drove down Friday night, camped out under the stars again. I love being outside and experiencing nature, it´s so awesome!

Saturday morning after we had some breakfast, we headed out to the canyon to do some rock climbing. We also hiked to a cave that was about 1.5 miles away. I did end up going off with another guy to find another place to climb, and we ended up getting a search party! So that was pretty exciting. After climbing all day, we headed back to Provo just in time for the Women´s broadcast. It was a great weekend!

Back to School....

2008-09-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back at school! well, I've been here for a few weeks but you get the idea. 2 weeks ago my friends from Guatemala and I had a pretty awesome camping trip down in Zions National Park. We had a great time cliff jumping, doing some 'parcour' or freestyle walking, and camping out under the stars!!

Pacaya (again), Eladio´s and Soccer!

2008-07-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend we headed back to Antigua to find a ride over to Pacaya, an active volcano nearby. On our previous trip to Pacaya, we hiked although to the top of the crater, looked inside, and just wandered around all over the volcano because we didn´t have a guide. On the return trip, our guide told us it is impossible to go to the top because of small eruptions and apparently parts of the Volcano collapse. Let me just say I´m grateful I´m alive! The return trip was fun though because although we didn´t go to the top we found a really cool lava flow on the side of the volcano and got close enough to roast marshmallows!!

Monday and then Today in the afternoon I headed up to Cerro Alto with Eladio to teach an after school program and hand out school kits. The kids were way excited to receive their school supplies and the girls really want me to bring them nail polish while the boys want hot wheels cars. I don´t know if I´ll be able to bring all 25 of them presents, but it would be really neat if I could because those kids are so much fun!

Yesterday was the first day of our Soccer Practice (team) and we had a blast! The kids actually enjoyed the running drills that we did and wanted to take home our soccer balls to ´borrow.´This project came about because one of the girls donated 50 old soccer uniforms and we needed some way to use them all. So we talked to the school, had 50 kids sign up, and now we have 5 teams of players who we´ll work with for 4 weeks before they have a big tournament. So far it´s been great.

On a final note, Jennifer, one of the kids at Clara Fantasia, the orphanage that we work at, was able to return home to her family! Her family situation is stable enough that she can go home. I´m a little sad that I won´t really be seeing her around anymore, but it´s really exciting that she went home.

I come home next week! I can´t believe how fast time flies.

Santa Rosa and no country directors!

2008-07-10T16:32:00.001-07:00

I realized I haven´t been on the internet in awhile, but I´ve been really busy with projects sometimes working up to 14 hour days. Last weekend half of the team took off to Honduras(including the country directors) for the weekend while the rest of us stayed here and went shopping in Antigua. I had mild food poisoning, but it was a pretty good weekend until Sunday night when we realized just the 5 of us had to cover all of the projects on Monday. I ended up taking off by myself with Manuel Chavez, a preacher, to 2 villages 3 hours away to build a few stoves. Needless to say, it was a very long day.

The team has had a lot of fun this week because the country directors are both gone to Honduras! Well, we´ve been able to keep things running but at the same time it´s been pretty crazy. I went street contacting yesterday and talked with a school about doing an afterschool soccer program for a month, so we´ll start that up next week! Also, we bought a ton of books on our trip to Antigua to start building a library at a school close by.

I´ve worked a lot of long days, but it´s been worth it. I love interacting and speaking with the people here. It´s always a really fun experience.

a foto of a woman making salsa using a traditional grinding stone.

This is a foto of Sam and Genevieve giving a presentation to a group of women about stoves last week. We set up to go teach in several of their villages this week in and around San Martin.

This is a foto of a garden that a woman built in her yard. If they come listen to a lesson on nutrition and build their garden beds, we give them seeds.

Semuc Champey and stoves

2008-07-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I headed back out to the village of Yalu with a group called Fundea to supervise or review 17 stoves that the women had built to make sure they were done correctly. This is a picture of one of the stoves that they built. For the most part, they did them correctly so we will be able to bring chimneys back and give them to them in a few weeks.

Monday afternoon I went to the village of Santa Isabel where we run an afterschool program for some of the kids in the area. Yesterday we talked about imagination and read the book Where the Wild things Are. After that we had the kids draw some pictures of some of their monsters and share them with everyone else. This is a picture of the kids drawing. I also got the chance to see one of the gardens we built in Santa Isabel about a month ago. Everything is growing nicely and the radishes were huge!!

Over the weekend we headed up to Coban and went to the caves of Lanquin and Semuc Champey. The caves were really neat - we saw a lot of big spiders but had a lot of fun climbing around!

Semuc Champey was absolutely gorgeous! We went cliff jumping (not too high up) and swimming in the clearest water ever! Semuc Champey is a natural limestone bridge, underneath where we were swimming there is a huge cavern with a raging river. But the pools were nice and calm and we all had a great time!

chimenys and monterrico

2008-06-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

This weekend we took a one-day get away to the coast and played on the beautiful black sand beaches of Monterrico! It was nice to take a break and hang out on the beach for a day. Yesterday we went to a village and handed out chimneys. It was really fun to chat with the women and give them chimneys, they were really grateful. It will be a nice change for them to get smoke out of their homes.

I went to the market the other day and found a couple different kinds of fruits that I had no idea what they were or what they tasted like, so of course I bought a bunch. The red pokey balls are called lenchas. To eat them you peel of the peel and just suck on the fruit until you get to the seed. The green fruit was similar to that as well.

The past couple days I’ve had a scratchy throat and stuffed up sinuses, which eventually developed into a full on sinus infection and the flu. This morning I woke up feeling horrible with a fever and incredibly stuffed up sinuses. Luckily, ACIDICO has a small pharmacy where they sell drugs that they get from the US. I found a bottle of Amoxicilin so I am now on antibiotics for the next 10 days and hopefully will be better soon.

quiche

2008-06-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

This last weekend was crazy!! We left Wednesday afternoon for Quiche, a province here in Guatemala. We expected to take a nicer bus to Quiche, but found ourselves on a Chicken bus for 5 hours. Unfortunately, since we didn't plan on taking the Chicken bus, some people had stuff stolen on the bus. I lost a phone, a small amount of money and my swimsuit bottoms. Thursday and Friday were fun because we went out to these remote villages to build some stoves. Unfortunately, I ran into some ant hills and my feet got really bitten up! Other than that, it was a really neat experience because the people there were so excited for us to come. It was San Juan day or something while we were there too so we went to a big celebration Thursday night and then watched their big parade on Friday morning. One of the villages, Chichel, had some amazing waterfalls as well so we had a blast diving in and swimming around. There was even a secret cave behind the waterfall.

Saturday morning I took off to Panajachel with another volunteer with a family that was here touring Guatemala. Apparently they are going to give some money to our organization, and I went with them to help show them around and do some translating. Panajachel is on Lake Atitlan aka the Waters of Mormon. It was absolutely beautiful!

Monday was the last day for the first wave volunteers. :( I went out with a group called FUNDEA in the morning and then headed over to the Lopez's house and made some nice warm homemade chocolate cookies for everyone. It was really sad to see them all go, and at the same time I was really glad that I decided to stay.

The last two days I went out to villages to work more on gardens and stove projects. It's been raining hard the last few days too, we are definitely in the rainy season now!

new volunteers

2008-06-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

Last night we had 3 new volunteers arrive at the house, so of course we had to plan some pranks. After heading out in the morning and teaching an awesome health lesson coupled with square foot gardening, and then stopping in at the hospital for a minute, we set out on a long search for some firecrackers. We thought we would give the volunteers the real Guatemalan experience so at 2 am we lit of two long strings of firecrackers and made a whole ton of noise. Needless to say, it definitely scared them a bit, but it was so worth it! Today we are headed out to Quiché, another province here in Guatemala where we will be the next few days building stoves, teaching health, and gardens. I´m excited for the weekend!!!

ps. don´t worry I´ll post more pictures next time.

waters of mormon

2008-06-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend had a great start on Thursday when I went to school and the English teacher had a surprise for all of the volunteers that day. He brought ´sonpopos´ or toasted ants for everyone to try. They were huge! But actually didn´t taste too bad. Apparently they only come out once a year here and are considered a delicacy here in Guate. With a little lime and salt, they actually didn´t taste too bad. Friday was an interesting day because we all drove out to Panajachuel to check out Lake Atitlan and then I headed back to Chimal to try and work on some papers while everyone else stayed there. Lake Atitlan is sometimes called ¨the waters of Mormon¨ and was absolutely beautiful! Over the weekend I stayed with Luis, our driver, and his family and had a blast. They have 5 kids, a boy and 2 sets of twin girls aged 10 and 12. I spent most of the time playing games with the girls and having 2 big sleepovers Friday and Saturday nights. I also went to mass at a catholic church this morning which was way interesting and then to a birthday fiesta for a little boy that lives down the street and I went and explored the huge food market with Verónica, Luis´ wife. The most exciting part of the weekend though was watching Guatemala beat the United Status 4-0 in futsal on Saturday and then beat Cuba in a shoot-out to win the championship!! Overall, I was able to work some on my homework but for the most part I just played and had fun with the fam.

Tikal

2008-06-03T12:19:00.001-07:00

This weekend we took a 'vacation' and travelled to Tikal, an ancient Mayan City full of temples and other Mayan ruins. It was really neat to see them especially since I have been reading a lot about the Mayas. We were able to climb to the top of some of the temples which were really high and steep, but you could definitely see a long way from the top of them, it was pretty neat. The only down side was that a tropical depression was moving through Guatemala at the same time and it was raining the whole time so we were wet the whole trip.
The day before we went to Tikal we stopped in Rio Dulce and took a boat ride up the river to Livingston, a small island at the mouth of the river that was settled by a group of shipwrecked Africans back in the day. It was really fun being on the water and going swimming, it made me realize how much I miss swimming and being on a boat! On the way to Livingston, we stopped at some really neat caves that apparently were used in the late 1950s as a hideout for a drug trafficker who was on the run from the police. It was pretty neat.
We were going to head up into Belize after Tikal and hangout on the beach, but the beach isn't too much fun in the rain so we decided just to head back home. Overall, it was a really fun trip!

The weather forecast for this week seems to be all rain, so it looks as if I´m in for a wet week. And yes, I am staying until July 22nd now. just in case anyone hadn´t heard.

i love guate!

2008-05-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

This last week has been crazy! I've been going non-stop it seems like. Last wednesday I was able to go out to a village to help build a stove. The area we were in, Santa Apopolina, was absolutely beautiful and the people that live there are incredibly nice. They gave us some pottery they made as a present. After spending the day building a stove, we got back to Chimal just in time to go to the mayor's office! Of course our group was covered in mud, but it was still fun anyways. We also had the chance last week to go to the temple again as a group where we met up with some of the crew from El Salvador. Saturday night was spent in Antigua dancing! That was incredibly fun.

Probably the craziest adventure we've had in the last week was helping to reconstruct a guy's tin house with no instructions. It was really just a big puzzle - we had to look at screw holes to figure out which beams went where. When we started we thought it would only take a few hours but we finally finished after working on it for 3 days for 6 hours at a time.

Tuesday night we had a stake conference meeting with one of the counselors of the seventy in Colinas, which is a really pretty camp area. I sang in the choir with some of the other volunteers which was an amazing experience!!

Other than that I've just continued on working with the gardens and English teaching. The women are really excited about the gardens and growing their own food, it's really fun working with them.

I love working with the other people in our team, and I am so excited to keep working! This moring we cleared a field for a government school so that they can have some where to play during their gym classes. After clearing up the field, we ended with a nice game of soccer. We leave for vacation in 1 hour to Tikal, so I´m excited to head out!!

volcano, cemetery and partying with the mayor!

2008-05-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to visit the cemetery for part of one of my culture classes I am taking down here. It was really interesting - most people buy plots for their whole family and then build moseliums. People that don´t have as much money are either buried in the wall of the cemetery or in the ground. Walking around, we happened to find one with the picture of the salt lake temple on it! It was pretty awesome. The guy was apparently a bishop back in the day, he died in 1972.

Sunday night we were invited to the mayor´s wifes birthday party. One of the ladies that we work with has mad connections so this is the second function we have done with the mayor so far and on wednesday we are going to tour his office. Anyways, the party was pretty fun, there was a lot of latin dancing, a pinata and lots of good food. I love the way they celebrate!

Today was the first day I was actually teaching in the school Mesoamericana as well. The highlight of my day was when we were working with the 9th graders in present progessive. I asked a boy in the class,¨What is your girlfriend doing right now?¨ He didn´t know how to respond so the Guatemalan english teacher said, ¨She is making out with other boys.¨ The kids didn´t really understand it, but I thought it was hilarious. Other than that, things are going well! I´m so excited to actually start working on things this week. =)

photos

2008-05-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

I´m at a different internet cafe today so here are some pictures!

I don´t have any of the volcano we hiked today, but that´s ok. Everyone woke up at 330 am to climb Pacaya, an active volcano here in Guatemala. It was pretty amazing, especially after we got to the top and looked over the rim to see some nice hot lava! It was pretty amazing, but intimidating at the same time because it made a lot of noise. By the time we all got down from the volcano, everyone was a little bruised and cut up but it was so fun and definitely worth it. I´ll put up some pictures of the volcano hopefully next time. :)

Setting up Projects

2008-05-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

The last few days we have been working a lot on setting up projects and getting everything up and running. In the morning I went over and worked at ACIDICO and used a foot pedal sewing machine to sew a bag! It was a really neat experience because after I finished the women that are normally there sewing included me in their Mother´s day celebration which included tamales for lunch and lots of talk and games. It was a blast. Then in the afternoon we met with a guy about doing square foot gardens and it turns out that he runs a group that works a lot with conservation and is really interested in community development as well. We drove out to his village on the spur of the moment and met up with some of the women there and plan to go back tomorrow to make a sample garden. This our first trip out to a village and it was amazing! The women that we met with actually make their own shampoo and soap out of natural materials and sell them in the market too. Sam, the project leader bought some of the shampoo which is made out of things like aloe vera and some tree extracts I think. It was pretty cool though.

We spent the morning this morning building a sample stove next door at ACIDICO. It was a very fun experience because we had to mix the clay with water with our feet! Everyone got a little messy but we finished it and hopefully we´ll be able to have a cook out on the stove we built next week. Unfortunately I didn´t take any pictures of the stove building because my camera ran out of batteries.

I brought pictures, hopefully they´ll upload.... the picture here is a view from our house.

Temple Trip and Choir practice

2008-05-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I learned that when Guatemalans celebrate, they really celebrate! Saturday was Mothers´Day here and that meant that the fireworks started going off at 330 am. It almost sounded like a war was going on outside, it was crazy. The single adults here woke up at 3am to go sing to all of the mothers saturday morning and then we left at 530 am on a bus to go on a stake temple trip to the temple in Guatemala City. On the bus I sat by a woman named Silvia Auzman who is a returned missionary and lives with her widowed sister to help her take care of all of her kids. She was really helpful because she pointed out to me a lot of different things and places on the way to guatemala city. We got to the temple at 645 in the morning and had to wait 3 hours before we could go in because apparently everyone goes on saturday because its the day off of work. There were a lot of people there. I also found out that the baptismal font is very small but all in all it was a good experience.

Yesterday we attended the Chimal 1st ward and ended up going to choir practice which was cool becuase now we get to sing in the stake choir when an apostle from our church comes the 27th of may to give a fireside. I´m way excited!

Today we visited the school in Patzcia where I am going to be teaching english and maybe some science classes as well a few days a week. One of the guys that works at the school is 27, has 5 kids and was just called to be a bishop. He was super nice and showed us around the town. Also, today was the first day of rain so I guess the rainy season has officially begun! That´s ok though, I say bring on the rain!!

Habitat para la Humanidad

2008-05-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

The last two days we´ve been working in a small town called Parramos with Habitat para la Humanidad building a house for a family. Yay for manual labor! Although parramos is not that far out in the country, it´s nice to get out of the city some and have a little bit of fresh air! Did I mention that there is a lot of smog and pollution in the city? They don´t have emissions tests here so pretty much anything that runs is on the road. Also, our main form of transportation places is on chicken buses, old school buses from the US that have been painted crazy colors and have tons of peple crammed onto the bus. It´s always a fun experience on the bus. Other people that don´t have cars also use tuk tuk´s, small tricycle motorbikes that are some what like a small taxi. It´s pretty fun though.
Last night we decided what projects we would be in charge of the next couple weeks and I am going to head up ESL and square foot gardens with a couple different people. I´m excited to start talking to the organizations and get going! Also for our stove projects, the welfare missionaries are possibly going to buy a bunch of chimneys for us and provide some other materials, so that´s really exciting too. Also, we ended up getting a house that does not have an internet connection and so I am sitting in a small internet cafe down the street that costs about 3.5 quetzales per hour or 5o cents. Not too bad, eh?
So far I´ve been enjoying the food a lot. There is a small bakery on our street where you can get 3 pieces of sweet bread for 1 quetzal which is about one seventh of a dollar. It´s pretty excelent. Also today I had some Jamaica which is a drink made from a flower here I think but it´s very delicious.
I forgot to bring my camera and jump drive again, I´ll have to plan more time for that next time becuase it takes some time to load the computers and everything becuase they are a little bit slower. Well, I think that´s all for now. Our group also has a blog so I am going to try and put that address up for people to look at.

Airport Adventures

2008-05-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

I made it to Guatemala! After waking up at 330 to catch a flight at 740 in Chicago, I arrived in Guatemala at 130 in the afternoon. After retrieving my bags I sat in the baggage claim for 2 hours reading becuase I knew that my ride wasn´t going to be there for another 3.5 hours. The airport workers came and checked on me a few times and then at about 4 I decided to go sit outside. I made friends with another airport worker who enjoyed practicing his english but then we spoke reverted back to the spanish. I understand pretty much everything, and can communicate pretty well, so that´s good. The airport worker that I made friends with came back to check on me every 20 mins or so and eventually let me borrow his phone to call Geno (my country director) to see where they were at. He also was generous enough to give me his phone number, just in case I wanted to call sometime. Also at the airport I met a girl from Germany who has been living here for a year. It was fun to talk to her. After Geno picked me up with Herbert (the son of one of the guys (luis) that our group is working with) we hung out in Guatemala city for another 4 hours until the rest of the group arrived. Luckily I had a frisbee so we played frisbee a lot in the airport parking lot. The group finally arrived and we went to Luis´house for dinner. His wife, Veronica is a great cook! Today we are heading out to meet the mayor of Chimaltenango, the city where we are staying. It´s nice and warm today, so I´m excited to head out and see some more of the city. My camera batteries are charging but as soon as I get a chance I´ll upload some pictures. I miss you all!

Virginia

2008-05-05T22:00:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I spent the weekend in Virginia with one of my best friends! It was amazing. I was exposed to the greek life found at pretty much all other universities except for BYU, so that was a fun and unique experience. We also went to FoxFields, which is a huge horse race about 5 miles outside of Charlottesville. For most people, it's an excuse to drink and party - some people never even see a horse while they are there! After sitting in a 5 mile traffic jam for 3.5 hours, we finally arrived and managed to watch some races before getting caught in a huge thunderstorm. All in all, it was an adventure. The next day we went back to Charlottesville to go to a Switchfoot concert. That was pretty great too. Overall, I had an amazing weekend last weekend in the small town of Lexington, VA and I absolutely loved the chance I had to spend some time with one of my best friends! It was amazing! And now, off to Guatemala!!

I'm a comma!

2008-04-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

Malina posted this quiz, so I thought I would take it. It's funny because I think it sums me up pretty well! Anyways, it's a fun quiz, you should take it too.

You Are a Comma

You are open minded and extremely optimistic.

You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything.

You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests.

You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time.

Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to.

(But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.)

You excel in: Inspiring people

You get along best with: The Question Mark

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Holi - Festival of Colors

2008-03-31T21:13:00.001-07:00

Every year at the Krishna Temple people come together to celebrate Holi, or the Festival of Colors. The Festival of Colors is the Hindi way of celebrating the coming of Spring. What better way to celebrate than gathering with thousands of other people for good music food, and of course chalk throwing! The main part of the event begins after the lighting of a big bonfire when everyone pulls out their bags of powdered chalk and begin to throw! By the end, everyone is a big walking rainbow but it is definitely fun and worth it! It was a little scary at time with all the moshing and pushing through the crowds, but it was so much fun. I even got to crowd surf, and I made it out alive! Yippeee!

Fire Breathing and tree-huggers!

2008-03-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I happened to come home from a bad date not only to good friends, but to fire-breathing! here's how you do it: buy a big bag of powdered sugar and a box of matches. Fill your mouth with a large amount of sugar without shutting your mouth. Light a match, and then blow a nice stream of sugar to create a nice, big fireball. I had a couple good fireballs, but we didn't catch those on camera. Here's a picture of one of my friends though.

Last year, my good friend found that an inflatable palm tree will suction to the ceiling and you can 'hang' from the tree. It was really fun watching people attempt to grab on and stay on! No wonder people always call me a monkey! Anyways, this makes a great sunday afternoon activity. You should all try it sometime.

Snowmobiles and movies

2008-03-01T23:32:00.000-08:00

These last two weeks have been so much fun. Let's see... last Friday I was planning on going to the library to study when my brother came over to grab something from the apartment. Somehow I was talked into going up to a cabin for the night but it was definitely worth the lost study time and the 5$ I had to pay for missing cleaning checks! Getting away from school for a little bit is refreshing, especially when you are in a cabin in the mountains that you have to take snowmobiles with toboggans hooked on the back to get to it! There were 15 of us that went up and we played games Friday night - including speed scrabble (I dominated!), catch phrase, and ghost in the grave yard. Apparently I am really good at being 'creepy,' but hey, who doesn't like a good scare every once in a while? Saturday morning we woke up and took the snowmobiles out to have some fun! We went knee-boarding and tubing off the back. Luckily I was wearing goggles because when I finished tubing my whole face was completely white. Of course there was tons of food and good company so the whole trip in general was fantastic.

I also went to see Spiderwick Chronicles Saturday night which was interesting - it reminded me a lot of Bridge to Terrabithia with all of the fantasical creatures, but it was more or less entertaining. I would recommend it more for elementary school kids, but it's still enjoyable none the less.

Chemistry, dates, and other fun times

2008-02-12T21:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just feel like my life is run by school - because it is. Everyday it's wake-up, run, and go to school for on average close to 12 hours. I go to class, work on homework and try to understand things even though sometimes it just doesn't click - or at least not until after the exam. Pretty typical, huh? Chemistry this semester is much more entertaining though, I have 6 lab hours a week so I'm learning lots of new things! I have also had the chance to dissect some pretty fun things in my Animal class - parasitic worms, clams, squid, sea anemones - and had the chance to look at a 20 year old Octopus stored in formaldehyde - that one smells, let me tell you! Learning is so much fun, especially the hands on part. I can't wait until we get to the shark. :) To break up the day and relax after a hard schedule I decided to take a springboard diving class! It's way fun - I am learning so many fun dives. I think it will go better after I learn how to properly dive off - all those years on swim team do not help when it comes to diving. I decided to just focus on school and let other things - like dating just fall into place which it totally has! I went on a few dates last week and then already have 2 for this weekend (it's true it is Valentine's Day) but still, I'm way excited! So I guess I'm just living life and loving it!! :)

New Year's Resolutions

2008-01-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

So every January millions of people make New Year's Resolutions in an attempt to improve their lives in some way but fail miserably after a few months, give up and decide to just wait until the next year. I made the goal not only to actually start using this blog, but to run at least 1200 miles in the year 2008. Mathematically that is approximately 25 miles a week, but of course you have to factor in potential injuries, etc. - I plan on starting out at 20 miles a week and slowly building up to at the most 40 miles a week. I've dealt with running injuries in the past so I am determined to start training slowly and gradually increase intensity and density to prevent injuries so that I can reach my goal. I haven't decided if cross-training counts yet - I guess I will have to decide when I get to that point. So, I'm off to the running store tomorrow to buy a new pair of running shoes and I am starting in on my goal! The feed on the side of my blog will tell you how much I've completed for my goal for the month and I think if you click on it you can cheer for me somehow! Anywho, I'll be sure to post updates. Who knows, maybe I will finally get that marathon in! Hooray for 2008!

2007-10-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

Hannah left today... :( We had a fairly good weekend together though. Hannah went with me to all of my classes and out of all of them she enjoyed Spanish the most even though she couldn't understand a word. Thursday I gave her a quick tour of campus and then we walked up to the temple together to do baptisms. The temple workers were so cute - they had a lot of fun with the fact that we were sisters. Friday we went over to a rugby game - it was Hannah's first experience and so it was really fun - she decided that her high school back home needed a rugby team so that she could go watch. Saturday we hiked the Y which was really intense - especially since Hannah doesn't do much exercise type activities. Her butt was sore this morning :)
This is us on top of Y mountain. Hannah was really excited because she conquered the mountain! woohoo! go hannah! even though she was a little bit dizzy and her legs were shaky, we totally did it! Yea! I really just enjoyed having her here - I really miss her sometimes because we are really good friends. I can't wait for her to come out here so I can mooch off dining + .... hehe.
On another note, Nat, Hannah and I went to Joel's play this weekend which was fun - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The fact that Millie meets Adam and gets married the same day really reminded me of BYU - how people meet and get married right away. It was funny. I enjoyed it.

Hannah comes to Utah

2007-10-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

This morning I drove up to Salt Lake to pick up Hannah from the airport. She is going to be staying with me for the weekend which is pretty exciting. We are going to do all of the fun things around Provo - you know - like hike the Y, bike up the canyon, go running everyday, etc. On the side we might go to the BYU creamery, take a golf cart tour of campus, and maybe go to a haunted house or two. It should be a really good time. I just really hope that I survive my classes - ie am able to concentrate and still get some studying done. Yea, that would be great. So far we haven't done very much - Hannah just slept all afternoon and we made calzones for dinner which were delicious.