Blessed

As we are getting ready to leave the beautiful state of New York, I'm feeling so overwhelmed and blessed for the opportunity to have been here. I have so many mixed feelings about leaving. I love it here, I really do...now.

At first I had a hard time here, and I didn't know that I would love it. I felt like I had to call family every day just to make it through a day because I felt lonely. I didn't want to let myself like it here. I tried to keep myself from liking it by finding things wrong with it like the fact that the roads are too skinny, that driving everywhere is a pain, that things cost a little more here and that people are not nice, it's too humid, it's too hot, I have no family here, I don't have lots of friends here like in Utah and so on.

But then one day, I decided that I would just let those negative feelings go and open my mind to New York. I let it into my heart and well, it grew on me, and now I don't want to leave. I love the green all around. I love the people in the ward here, I love being so close to so many historic cities and in a historic part of the United States. It's cool to be here. I like being in a place where I can have more missionary experiences than in UT.

I have made some awesome friends here, and even though I haven't been able to do a lot of things with those friends during our short stay here, I feel like I could ask them for anything, and that they would help me out no matter what. I don't want to leave those friends behind. I'm having a hard time knowing that I'll most likely never see any of them again, and that makes me very sad, because I really love them all.

Now, I don't know if we'll be back to NY or not. It's one of our "options" but there's no telling until we see what else is out there for us. I would love to come back to NY even though I'd have a really hard time being away from all my family almost all of the time. But, we will go where we're supposed to go, and I'm not sure where that is yet.

So, thank you New York & people of New York, for giving my little family a great opportunity to meet some amazing people, see amazing parts of the country & historic places and for a fun summer of entirely new things.

I'll remember it forever & NY will always have a special place in my heart.

Nauvoo

OK, so there's lots to say about Nauvoo, but I don't have all the time in the world to say it so forgive me!


When we got into Nauvoo, we headed to the visitor's center to grab some brochures and then went to the Brickyard. It was cool to learn about how they make brick and hear stories about the people building homes and what not.



After that, we decided to make our way to Carthage. We knew we wouldn't have tons of time to see everything, so we made going to Carthage a priority, since it's such a spiritual experience. When we got to the visitor's center, we were the ONLY people there, so we watched the movie, then the Sister Missionaries took us on a tour of the jail. What an amazing experience. It is honestly like no other experience I've had, and I hope that EVERYONE can someday visit Carthage Jail and walk where Joseph, Hyrum, John Taylor and others have walked. It was definitely an experience that strengthened my testimony, and I am so thankful for the opportunity we had to visit Carthage Jail. I will remember the feeling I felt in that room forever!


If you want to learn more about this click here.

After we visited Carthage, we didn't have any time to make it back to Nauvoo before things closed, which was sad but OK since we had such a good experience at Carthage. We headed to Keokuk, Iowa for dinner at Ogo's. ...interesting place...they served whole catfish, fried froglegs and other scary looking things. Pretty much the desserts were the best part and I was glad when dinner was done ha ha. We stayed in Keokuk and had planned to get up and go to church before going to Nauvoo again to see what we missed the day before. Our plan was thwarted when we all woke up at 8:45 and church started at 9. So, we were unable to make it to church and went down to breakfast, packed up and headed back to Nauvoo to see a few more things.

We drove through an insane storm to get back to Nauvoo and we were pretty sad to learn that we probably wouldn't be able to get out and walk the Temple grounds and take pictures since it was SO stormy. We decided to just sit for a while and lo and behold, the storm passed!

Pictures of the Nauvoo Temple during the rain!


Inside the Seventies Hall

Different view of the Nauvoo Temple! It's such an AWESOME Temple!

We set the camera on a timer, and David ran back into the picture JUST in time. :)

David and Ellie on the Nauvoo Temple Grounds

Seriously, if you have the opportunity, visit Nauvoo. It's such a beautiful place with such a great atmosphere! Whether or not your are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you can have an enjoyable time visiting Nauvoo and taking in the beauty that is there.

We loved our short but sweet trip to Nauvoo and I'm so happy we decided to take the extra travel time to visit! So neat!

14 weeks

It's official! 1st trimester is OVER! That also means all the sickness should subside soon...and guess what? It's finally starting to! I'm so happy about this! I still have a hard time eating well, but at least I'm not gagging anymore :)

Let's see...not much to report here other than I'm still trying to gain weight. I'm down an additional pound from my 12 week appointment so hopefully I can gain weight and stop losing it.

I'm still having crazy dreams every night--mostly about finding out the sex of the baby and it's always a boy if anyone is wondering. I guess in 6 weeks, we'll find out if my dreams are trying to tell me something or not! The other recurring pregnancy dream I'm having is about having twins. I'm pretty convinced I am not, or else I think I'd be showing much more at this point. Another reassurance is that I've never heard a "shadow" heartbeat as they say sometimes happens when listening to the heart beat. Let's all cross our fingers that there's just one baby in there! :D

Life is great lately aside from the fact that I hardly see David because of school and work--but hey I'm still a happy camper!

This morning we had an adventure and picked up our first Bountiful Basket. SO awesome. Needless to say, my fridge is FULL of fresh fruit and veggies! I'm eating the watermelon right now and it's SO yummy. I'm thinking I won't be buying fruits and veggies @ the grocery store anymore. What's the bother when I can get so much for only $15???

This weekend is going to be a lot of fun! Tonight we're going to the Stadium of Fire for FREE '99. I love having connections/relatives that have connections! We're also seeing lots of friends and family and that will be fun as well!

That's all for now--I'll get some pictures up of our fun weekend...and MAYBE take a picture of my bump that I swear is showing--but hardly anyone agrees.