Happy Birthday me!

For my birthday this year I decided to give my self a trip and go to Florida and visit my mission. I left on Thursday and returned on Monday.

I love flying and love the clouds. Sometimes I think I should have been a bird so I could soar free through the clouds and over the trees. I love the way the clouds look so peaceful and non disturbed. I know I would fall right through them but they look like something that would be so comfortable to just roll around in and lay there just to think. I think it would be so much fun to just fly and weave through them freely. 

Dorothy Daymont one of the members I knew while I served in Sarasota picked me up from the airport in Tampa and we took a drive to Orlando and went to the Temple. In all the trips I have made back to Florida I have never been able to make it to the Orlando Temple and I was really looking forward to this opportunity. 

It was such a gorgeous day. 

I would have to say out of all the Temples I have been in which has been a good number that this Temple was my favorite when it came to the Celestial Room. It was amazing and breath-taking on the inside. The colors in the Celestial Room were amazing. The Celestial room is already a place full of peace and comfort but this one was so warm and inviting through the interior colors and decorating. 

There were so many fountains on the Temple grounds. 

What a lovely scene. 

Freshly mowed grass trees and flowers a rich blue sky and the House of the Lord. 

Dorothy and John took me to dinner to the Outback Stake House. 

John and Dorothy have build the Nauvoo and Orlando Temples out of legos. 

Pretty impressive. John goes and does a walk around the Temple takes lots of pictures and does it as much to scale as he can. This is amazing at how accurate it is. He does some very nice work.   

I love the cute little plants around the lego Temple. 

Friday I decided to go relax at the beach. I went to the Siesta Keys beach. 

I love the beach here because the sand is soft and cool and it doesn't burn your feet when you walk on it. And the water is warm. The water was so nice to go out in it. It was fun to go to the beach and enjoy the peacefulness to the day. 

I really like the greenery in Florida. 

Especially the mossy stuff the hangs off the trees. I think it looks pretty cool. 

The sunset on Friday night was magnificent.

I love how the sun was illuminating the clouds. It was lovely. 

Isn't this a cute little picture? 

I keep this picture in my scriptures and every time I see it memories from my mission. I received this picture from a little girl named Gigi. Her family had us over for dinner after Gigi's baptism. While I was sharing the spiritual message with the family Gigi was drawing this picture. When I was done she said "Here Hermana this is for you"  It makes me smile. The last time I was visiting Florida this family had moved and they moved back. I was excited to get to see them. Dorothy didn't tell them that I was in town we just showed up and it was fun to catch up with them. When Brother Santos came down the stairs he says "I remember you" They are such a great and fun family. It was so crazy to see the girls again Gigi is 15 now. 

Gigi, Me, Sister Santos, Brother Santos, Gabriela

Sunday was my birthday and that coming Wednesday was Karen's birthday Dorothy's daughter. So Dorothy had Karen and her family over for dinner and we shared a party together. 

Karen Reed and I getting ready to blow out the candles.

Karen and me

They missed the picture of us blowing out the candles so they told us to try again. I am not sure what Karen was doing there. 

My new buddy Carson. We had a lot of fun together. 

Dorothy, me, John

My adopted brother Danny. He got all dressed up just for me. Isn't he handsome, just a little ham. 

I had dinner and dessert with Dorothy and the family and then I also got to go to the Hernandez's home and have a second dinner and cake. Vicky prepared an amazing meal it was so yummy. They asked me if I would like soda and I told them no but I will take agua pura. So they got me this glass for water. I asked them if they gave me the vase that they use for their plants and they laughed and said no it is our water glass. We never thought about putting flowers in it. It was funny and gave us all a good laugh. 

Me and round two with the second cake of the night. How lucky can a girl get to get two parties in one night. Boy did I feel loved. 

The spanish tradition for the birthday person is you have to take a bite out of the cake. And then when you go for your bite they push your face into the cake. Here is a short click of this occurrence. 

Me and all the icing on my face.

Danny thought it was funny that I had icing all over my face so I decided to share in the fun and give him a nice big kiss to share the icing. 

Can you see my teeth marks. 

Myra, Pascual and Danny enjoying their cake. 

Itzel and Myra my adopted sisters. 

Vicky asked me if I thought the icing smelled funny. I smelled mine and I told her no I don't think so. She said well here smell mine and when she did she smeared the icing over my face. I had to get her back and she wasn't to happy about that or at least she acted like she wasn't but I think she had a good time in sharing in the fun of icing on the face. 

I love this family. Pascual, Vicky, me, Itzel, Danny and Myra

Itzel, me and Myra

I love the smile here from Pascual. Usually it is so hard to get good pictures of them smiling but this one is a good one. 

This is in front of Dorothy and John's house. I had to get a picture with the palm tree. 

When I got home that night from my trip my roommate Amy had planned a surprise party for me. I got 3 parties out of my birthday this year. 

This is the note my home teacher left for me on my couch. 

Thank you to everyone for coming it was a lot of fun and Thanks Amy for being a great roommate and making me feel special. 

Individual portions

I decided to try something new. I love to cook but I hate cooking for just myself so I decided to cook up a bunch of meals and then I can freeze them in individual portions and have a variety of things to eat and then I only had to do the cooking once for a few weeks. I also ended up getting a 1/2 bushel of pears that I had to get canned as well so I had a very busy weekend. But I have amazing friends who helped me. My friend Jonathan came over on Saturday night a few weeks ago and helped me cook up a bunch of the meals. We got most all of them done on Saturday and I had two more that I did on Sunday. I had to more meals planned to make but ran out of fridge and freezer space. By the time I was done I had 17 quarts of pears and 78 portions of food. I did not keep all of it. I thought of two people who could really use it and shared my meals with them. They were both very grateful. One I know has enjoyed the food the other I haven't talked with since I dropped it off but I am sure it has been enjoyed. 

Jonathan and I were very tired by the time we were done cooking for the evening. My preparing for this event started as early as Thursday night in making homemade noodles for the chicken noodle soup. Then I canned 6 quarts of pears on Friday.

 Here is a list of the other food items we made: Breakfast Burritos 2 kinds, Chicken and rice soup, Chicken Noodle soup, Lasagna and Garlic Bread, Busy Day soup, Chicken Parmesan and pasta, Ham and Beans, Sloppy Joes, Meatloaf, 

Look at all that food. It has been really nice to just grab something and heat it up and have a nice home made meal. I had been buying the freezer dinners from the store but they cost around $3.50 to $4.00. I think when I figured out the cost of the food for the meals I made it was about $2.00 a meal or less. I thought that is a pretty good exchange. 

I had pears left to finish canning and my Friends Mindy McDonald and Ruby Sagastume came and helped me out on Monday. They both wanted to learn how to can so they came over and helped and I taught them how to can pears. It was a win win situation and I even sent them away with a jar of pears. 

I was so grateful for all the help I received in getting this all done. I was also preparing to leave town on Thursday of that week and it was nice to get everything done before I left so I didn't have to worry about anything. 

Thanks to Amazing Friends who are so willing to serve others! 

Ward Campout Variety Show Competition.

The single wards in Boston had a combine campout in New Hampshire at Camp Zion. It was a lovely evening and I loved the way the night looked on the lake. 

This is me my roommate Amy and her fiance Trent. 

Julie and Me

This ward had the 40's and 50's era to represent They did a good job with their singing and dancing. They also had a very funny MC he was hilarious. 

I have selected some of the fun songs and skit parts for you to view. I hope you enjoy it. They are not the best quality but that is the best I could do considering it was dark and I was far up in the stands. 

The two videos above are from the ward that had the 60's and 70's era. 

The rest of the videos are from my ward that had the 80's and 90's era. So there is one skit part from Save By The Bell. The rest are music videos from that time era. 

All of the wards did a great job and it was a lot of fun to watch.

Old Sturbridge Village

A few weeks ago I went to Old Sturbridge Village with my friend Austin. This village is kept and run as if it is their daily lives. We got to take a step back into history and see what life was like during the early 1800's.

 This is the Presbyterian Chapel.  

 Me!

 It was agricultural weekend so they brought out all the things they do in the town. These are rugs they made by hand.

Wool mittens

 Shawls

 The church organ. 

 Cheese and butter

 Many fruits and vegetables that were grown on the farms and gardens in town. They use everything for the consumption of the employees but they don't allow guest to consume any of the produce or food items they make. The villagers said they enjoy being able to consume the fresh milk, cheese and butter they make daily. 

 The inside of the chapel. 

 Austin playing one of the games they played in that time. 

 Me playing too. 

Austin wanted to have a race from one side of the play pit to the back up the hill (that you can kind of see behind me) and back to the start and see who can do it faster. I said "we have to go up the hill" Austin said "yes we can do it" So off we went I struggled the first try up the hill but the second one got my wheel up the hill and back down and to the start. I turn around to see where Austin was and he was barely to the top of the hill. I think I creamed Austin at that competition. It was fun.  

View of the village from up on the hill where they kept the powder house which is where they would keep all of the ammo and gun powder for their guns. 

 Powder house

 Austin

 Town garden

 A couple of boys hard at work chopping wood. 

 This is the cooper. He is the person who makes the barrels. 

 Off we went to learn about plowing fields with oxen. 

 We got to try our hand at plowing as well. Austin went first and started to plow a row. 

 After a while he ended up in the furrow that had already been plowed and he couldn't get it back out so his row only got half way done. 

 Hard at work. 

 When the people asked me if I wanted to try it and I told them yes they were a little shocked. They said girls won't do it for some reason. I was one of the first to plow the field. 

 They told me that I did a great job on my row. It wasn't completely straight but they said for my first row that was pretty darn good. I did at lease finish my entire row. :) It was a little hard to steer because when you move it to the right it goes left and when you turn it to the left it goes right. It was hard to remember that when you wanted to straighten out the plow a bit. It wasn't as hard to do as I thought it was. You have to push it forward into the ground to keep it cutting the ground but it wasn't to bad. I am sure it would be more tiring the more you do. 

 This lady was making cheese. 

 The cheese is in the process of curdling 

 The pottery kiln

 The pottery maker. It was fun to watch him make this cup. It brought back memories of when I made some pottery in school many many years ago. 

 I think this guy is so cute. He probably doesn't want to be called adorable but he is. 

 All of these were made by about 2 or 3 pottery makers. 

 This is a sand grinder that is used to grind the sand to use as a glaze to put on the pottery when it is done before it is placed in the kiln. 

 School house

 Girls would sit on one side and the boys on the other. 

 Up close look at the desks. 

 Baby oxen in training. They walk a few miles a day pulling a rock behind them to get them use to being in the yoke and pulling things. 

 The shoe maker. 

 The General Store

 I remember playing with one of these at Grandma and Grandpa Olsen's house when I was younger. 

 There were two kinds of rum the store keeper would sell. He would sell a Jamaican rum that was .06 cents per cup and it was about 180%. The other rum was .03 cents per cup which was about 80-90%. 

Chewing tobacco.

 This man was giving a demonstration of firing a musket so we could see the process they had to go through and how loud it sounds when it goes off. I sure would not have wanted to use one of these is a war. It took a while to get it loaded and ready to fire. And many times it would fire so you would have to do it again and hope it will go off. 

A few wooden toys. 

 Me and a couple of the villagers.

 The desserts for a party.

 How would you like your carpet to be this colorful?

 A big bed, a crib bed and a doll bed under the crib.

 This room has partitions in it which allowed them to open up the room so they could turn it into a dance floor.

 They just painted on the walls rather than putting up wall paper.

 And they painted on the ceiling as well.

 A little toy horse.

 These ladies were making butter and they had just finished up and were cleaning up as we came down.

 The things in the back are cheese presses.

 This is the butter churner.

Stable and Barn.

 This lady was making yarn from the wool of the sheep.

 Colored yarn.

 They cook the yarn

 Soak the yarn

 A Ram

 Look at that cute little rabbit.

 Stage Coach we got to ride the stage coach and it was really interesting to see what it was like to ride a stage coach. We only had a short ten minute ride and we didn't go very fast but boy would it be a bumpy ride over many miles and at top speed to get across the country.  

Covered Bridge.

 Saw Mill.

 This is a water wheel where they ground the grain and corn meal for the village.

 The wheel on the outside turned slow this one directly on the inside turned a bit faster than the first.

 This one turned even faster.

 This was interesting so I hope you can read it.

The grinding stones up top turned even faster. It was really interesting to see it in action.

 The Black Smith shop.

 Look at those big bellows up top.

 This is what the water ends up looking like after the use it time after time in cooling the metal they are working with.

 It really is true rocks grow in New England.

 This is what one of their beds looked like. That is just rope to hold the bottom and then a mattress of hay or straw would be put on the base of the bed.

 This is where they would make apple cider. Their apple cider generally contains alcohol in it. They put it in the thing that will mash up the apples the skin core all of it.

Then it is brought over to this machine the next day and it is pressed. It is placed under the hay and the press is dropped down on the apples and it will run down the edge and into the bucket in front of the press.
It was really interesting to visit Old Sturbridge Village. It was a lot of fun and was neat to be able to see life in a new view. I am glad I got to learn about the games they played and to try my hand and some of their hard work. It makes me appreciate how easy life is for us in our day.