Trip to the Zoo

Shawn and I have been talking about going to the zoo. We thought it would be a lot more fun if we took Shawn's nephews. It was so much fun. The boys were troopers. We didn't have more than 2 hours to spend so we were running trying to see everything. It was a great day to go to the zoo because it was nice and warm, a little too warm for me, and there are 5 baby animals at the Hogel Zoo right now. They were so cute. I have lots of pictures. . . sorry!

Shawn with Payson and Talan. . . mapping out the place

The boys waving to some weird cat-like animal

I thought this was the picture of the baby giraffe, but I guess not. She was very cute. . . but getting realy big!

Shawn, P Dawg and T Ray

It is hard to see but below the glare there is a baby snow leopard

We were all very excited to see the baby elephant. It was so cute. Talan was more interested in how big the elephants poop was. haha

The whole time Pays kept asking when we were going to go see the new baby tiger. He was so excited to finally see it. I think he was a little bummed that the tiger was just laying there.

Crazy Faces!!! After seeing everything we decided to take a nice little break on the train. It was way too short. . .

Shawn & Payson

cute boys

After the Zoo we had to rush to Shawn's game that he had to coach. Luckily there was a playground right by the field. I was actually really surprised at how they sat and watched the whole first half! They sat right by Shawn the whole half. . . and then went to the park the 2nd half. All the parents were giving Shawn and me a hard time about adopting kids, or saying we looked like parents. For now we are just good with being Fun Uncle Shawn & Aunt Ang (:
We love you Pays & Tal!

Kevin is coming home soon!

I finally got Kev to tell me his release date. I have asked him in every email every week for the last couple of months. He claimed he didn't know, and that we would know before him because my mom and dad would be sent his itinerary. I kept telling him that I had friends who already had their brother's release dates that were all the way in March. I tried telling him that missionaries shouldn't lie. . .I told him I was going to call his mission president. . . I tried everything!

This last weekend I was sitting with the parents while watching Shawn's younger team and I started talking to Kioko about Kev not telling me his release date. She turned to her husband Carl and said that he knew how to find out his release date by calling this church missionary travel number. So pretty much I told him I was going to call this number that I found and he must have been online at the same time because he responded and we emailed back a couple of times. Our conversation looked exactly like this:

Kevin: The date is the 30th of december ok ill be home the 31st

Angela:hahaha are you serious??? what the crap. why didn't you just tell me! and why are you missing 3 christmases? i'm leaving the church.

Kevin:I told you that when i had like a year left, i was gonna have to have 3 x mases here. o well es lo que hay.


Anyways, Kevin left Dec 19 (before Christmas) and is coming home Dec 30 (after Christmas). 3 total Christmases missed. So lame. I will get over it. Seriously tho . . . that is so messed up to do don't you think? I'm over it

It was almost 2 yrs ago that Kevin opened
his mission call to Concepcion, Chile

Kevin with his best friend Bryce
who is in Mexico. He just hit his 1 year mark!

Kev with my parents at the MTC
He looks so happy huh

Long story short I'm way excited about Kev coming home. 2 yrs is a long time, but I know he is where he is supposed to be!

10 Places I Want To Go Before I Die

I got this idea from my friend's blog, so I decided to copy her (: Shawn and I would love to travel. . . who wouldn't? With Shawn's busy school schedule and our lack of cash flow (our lack of saving. . .) traveling at this point in our lives is pretty impractical. We can dream right? I hope to take Shawn on a cruise after he graduates in December. I have been on a couple and I LOVE them. Other than that we have both been to Hawaii, traveled up and down the western US (thanks to our parents taking us on road trips growing up) and that's about it!

10 Places I want to travel to before I die. . . or before I get too old to be able to travel :)

1. Africa

I have always wanted to go to Africa. An African Safari would be so amazing. . . there are also cruises to Africa. That would be fun too.

Of course while I'm in Africa I will pick up my black baby. . .Shawn and I REALLY REALLY want to adopt, especially from Africa. There are so many kids there that need to be adopted. I want to just save every single one of them. Realistically hopefully we can save a few.

FYI, every 15 seconds another child becomes and orphan in Africa. Every Year 2,102,400 more children become orphans. 143,000,000 Orphans in the world today spend an average of 10 years in an orphanage. Around 250,000 children are adopted annually BUT . . . every YEAR 14,050,000 children still grow up as orphans and age out of the system.

Just something for every single one of you to think about . . .

2. Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Rio is where Shawn served his mission. He loved it! He makes it sound so beautiful. He tells me they have the best beaches in the world. That's all I need to know! Shawn and I are planning on going to Rio for the 2014 World Cup. Seeing AMAZING soccer while in a beautiful city sounds awesome. I hope it all works out! 2014 is coming up fast!!!

3. Venice, Italy

It looks so romantic doesn't it?

4. New Zealand

The picture says it all. . .

5. Bora Bora

I don't know anyone who has ever been to Bora Bora. It looks like my kind of vacation!!! I love the ocean. It looks completely relaxing and who wouldn't want to go to a Bora Bora? Lets face it. . . it's fun to say

6. The Vatican, Rome

Ever since we saw the 2nd Da Vinci Code we have talked about going here. It has so much history and such beautiful architecture.

7. NYC

Neither of us have been there, how sad is that! I love big cities. So much to do, so much to see! The shopping sounds great too (:

8. London, England

Shopping, European Soccer, Historic Sites . . . love it

9. Machu Picchu, Peru

Again I don't know anyone who has ever been there. It's one of the seven wonders of the world. So so so breathtaking

10. Around the World Cruise

I love cruises, I love the world, and I love traveling. Sounds Perfect!

Labor Day Weekend

This last weekend was so much fun. I really wish it was longer though. I always hate going back to work after a long weekend. So not fun. Anyways. . . I wish I had pictures to document this holliday weekend, but my camera is still broken. There is this cool underwater digital camera at costco that I am for sure getting. I've been putting off getting it because my birthday is coming up, but I don't know if I can wait until then!

Friday and Saturday I went up to Midway for Swiss Days to help my mom at her booth. She sells little pocket scriptures. They are so freaking cute. She is so creative. I wish I was more like her in that way! She thought she was prepared by bringing more than she sold last year, but she was wrong. We ended up pulling another all nighter, like last year, on friday night. It was actually pretty fun! My mom and dad brought all of her stuff up to my uncle Todd's show house in Heber. We had a big assembly line of helpers. My gma and gpa, Spencer and my cousin Ashley all came up to help. Spencer and gpa helped. . . with playing 18 holes on the golf simulator machine thing. We had fun staying up all night working away and watching movies. We ended up selling pretty much everything. I'm positive that if we had 100 more we would have sold them. Mom you better start making more for next year! You can check out her "pocket scriptures" at http://www.etsy.com/

Here is a picture of one of her many cute little Books of Mormon

Shawn had a tournament with his boys on friday and saturday so he wasn't able to come up and enjoy swiss days with us. Oh well. I'm sure he would much rather be coaching or playing soccer. He was able to go to the US World Cup Qualifier match at Rio Tinto Stadium. So that was fun for him.
Sunday I slept in until like noon. I needed to catch up on my sleep! I felt like a teenager again though :) Shawns family stayed up in Park City for the weekend so we headed up there for the afternoon and evening to hang out with them. Park City is always so pretty. It's crazy! We went swimming, hot tubbing, hung out at the room, and had a fun barbeque. I wish I had a picture of Payson's teeth right now. He looks like a real vampire. His little premolars are trying to fall out but his new teeth that are coming in are pushing them out horizontally. haha its pretty funny. Brandyn offered him a new scooter if he would let me pull them out, but he isn't ready to let them go yet. Talan is always saying the funniest things, and Preslie is getting big and is so cute!

here is a picture of park city for you. . . pretend like I took it (:

On Labor Day we just kinda were lazy! We went to see Chris (Shawn's bro) play in a soccer tournament, had some CafeRio for dinner, and then we went to see "All About Steve" with my mom and Spencer. Funny story. . . Spencer spilt all of the popcorn when he fell up the stairs of the movie theater. haha it was hilarious. It was a pretty funny movie too!

I love long weekends spent with family!