hello?

I haven't posted since January 1st.

I probably should have kept up at this because it's going to be hard to do these last 9-10 months justice.

January sucked. What with work being crazy and them forcing me to work overtime. It was really depressing. And I got really burned out for the next couple months. I'm not looking forward to that time of year again. (SOON! UGH!)

In February I went to Disney World! I fell in love with the place and had the most fun I've ever had. We went to the beach, to Universal Studios, to Downtown Disney, to every park in Disney World. SO FUN. I want to go back every day.

March passed by without much out of the ordinary. I started to like work a little bit better again. And I started to be better friends with people at work too. I have some amazing co-workers.

April brought with it some personal changes. I started reading the Book of Mormon again. I mention this because it really impacted my life a lot more than I thought it would. I owe every good thing that's happened this year to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Reading the Book of Mormon  again helped me draw closer to them and helped me change my life.

In May I welcomed these sun with open arms. I LOVE summer. I LIVE for the summer. My roommate and I also decided, rather quickly, to move from West Jordan to Cottonwood Heights. It was the best decision ever. We moved in with Chelsey and Lynsie to a house and I've loved every minute.

Ryan and Courtney got married in June! It was a really fun and awesome day. I'm happy Courtney is a part of our family. I couldn't ask for a better sister-in-law. So far the two that I have are AMAZING. So lucky. My brothers are crazy lucky too. I also went blonde in June. I was blonde for all of summer. That was fun. I took at trip to Manti with my ward and roommates. I started and ended as a temple worker at the Oquirrh Mountain temple. Then was set apart to start as a temple worker for the Salt Lake temple in August.

July was crazy busy. I went camping with my family one night, got sick for a week, had a family reunion, flew to New York with my mom and Annalie for 8 days, came back, worked a little, and then Cyann and Justin came in from New Mexico to visit us! LOTS of jammed packed days with lots of fun. New York was incredible. I just love my family out there. Hi-lights include Niagara falls, Hill Cummorah Pageant and the Sacred Grove, the finger lakes, hiking in the Adirondacks with Aunts and Uncle and cousins, and our day in Philadelphia. So much fun!

August started out busy as well. Working full time in the summer is a joke. It's SO hard to want to go to work when the sun is out and the world is beautiful! I went to Yellowstone with my ward. It was a blast. A lot of driving. But a blast. I started working at the temple! It's so incredible to spend 6 hours a week at the temple. I'm learning so much, even if it is SO difficult to wake up at 4am those days.

And now, September. It's the end of the month. Everyone went back to life and school and jobs. So life sort of slowed down a bit. I have a capstone student at work, so I get to have a student almost every shift from now until the end of October. It's teaching me patience, that's for sure. But she's great. Smarter than I was in school. I've been hiking a few times here and there. Don't see my family as much as the summer, but that's life.

So sorry it's been so long. These are the goings on. I really want to blog soon and write about my thoughts about my goings on. Like I sort of mentioned, my life has really changed this year and I am just in awe of how great these changes are and how they came to be.

But I guess stay tuned for those thoughts.

oh hi

Wow.

I haven't blogged since July.

Part of that is because I had the most amazing and eventful summer ever. Seriously, guys. I don't think I could have imagined it going any better. I completed everything on my summer to do list. I have never done that before. So that was a huge deal for me. 

I guess I would have blogged about that but then autumn came.

I had a hard time welcoming autumn into my life. It was the end of my summer and I really mourned the loss of it. It was the end of having my family out of school, people to hang out with, warm weather to play in, sunsets at 9pm. Seriously, everyone. I'm drooling thinking about summer time. I miss it so much it hurts.

Autumn for me usually means a lot of change. It used to mean a new semester at school, moving, a new ward, new people to meet, and a new calling. I think subconsciously I was freaking out about having everything in my life change, even if it wasn't really going to happen. I was dreading it because life had been very happy. This is the first year since I graduated high school that I haven't moved and changed wards in the fall. So all this dreading change was really unnecessary. Everything stayed normal and I didn't need to freak out. 

So I'm sorry I freaked out a little bit. It was almost like I was waiting for something to drastically change and make my life a little bit harder. But it never came, and I'm so grateful.

*Although I did get a new calling. And everyone I liked moved out of our ward and a whole bunch of new people came. And next week we get a new bishopric. So I guess the change was delayed. But I'm still happy.

New York

I was so excited when I realized that I could go to New York this summer to visit my mom's side of the family. I was even more excited when my brother in law consented to let me steal Lauren and Kent to come with me for a weekend. My mom was planning to be there for two weeks, so we decided to join her for my cousin Amy's graduation party and my cousin Katy's bridal shower. 

I haven't been on a plane in four years. The last time was when I came back from Korea to the US. So I was so excited get to fly again. We left on Thursday morning and caught our flight. We first flew to Denver, then to Washington DC, then to our destination in Syracuse, NY. 

We looked up all the tips to traveling with an almost 2 year old and I think he did very well. He was entertained by the take off and landing. He sat with his momma very well. He loved when they passed out juice. And on our flight to DC, which was the longest flight, he slept for two hours. Victory!

Our second flight, to DC, ended up a little bit late and we had a half hour to run (almost literally) to the other side of the airport and make our next flight. We had a strolled for the little guy and had to take elevators, because apparently, who ever designed this airport decided it would be awesome to make all flights arrive on one side of the airport and depart on the opposite side, while making you go up and down repeatedly to get there. We literally went on like 8 elevators, and some how made it to the flight with maybe 5 minutes to spare. I'm glad our luggage made it too. By the time we got to Syracuse we were exhausted. 

My uncle David gave us a ride out to our grandma's house where we were staying. He's such a nice guy. We had fun hearing about his job, the country side, and how you would see and hit deer with your car all the time if you lived out that way.

Aunt Betty and Grandma

Grandma's House

We made it to grandma's and promptly got ready for bed. It was 12am their time and 10pm ours, but we were tired.

Little guy woke up every morning around 7. The sun likes to shine bright, even though it was only 5am our time. We woke up friday morning and ate breakfast Dunkin' Donuts style and got ready to go for the day. We visited my Grandpa Amos's grave. Then we decided to make the ride to the Sacred Grove and to Hill Cumorah, very special places to our church's history. We had been there before, but we were pretty young and didn't remember much, so we were excited to go again.

Lowy took a bite of everyone's donuts

We went to the visitor center for the Hill Cumorah and then drove up the hill to the monument and took a few pictures. It was so beautiful and green there. We drove down the road a little ways to the Sacred Grove and to the Farm House that Joseph Smith and his family lived at during the time of the first vision and him growing up. Such a humble house and a sweet feeling standing where the family had lived. We walked around with a missionary who told us about the history and then she left us to have time in the Grove to walk around and take in the beauty.

I recited the first vision for my family in Korean. I would have done it in English, but I know it better in Korean. :) It was great to be there knowing what I know about the church and how much God loves us. It was a special moment. We walked around and were happy. It was beautiful.

We went home that night and ate dinner at my Aunt Donna's house. My grandma, Great Aunt Betty, my Cousin Patrick and his wife and son, and Aunt Beth and Cousin Emily and her boyfriend joined us. It was fun seeing people I hadn't seen in 12 years! I can't believe it had been that long. Kent liked seeing their tractors and running down the hill. Their house is on a beautiful piece of land. It's so green. The whole town is just gorgeous. 

We usually went to sleep around 10 o'clock and got up at 7. Saturday morning we went to a farmer's market in town by Colgate College. It was really fun to walk around and see all the different booths and things for sale. We saw some Amish people. That was a first. It was interesting to me to notice the differences between a market in New York and a market in Utah. In Utah there would have been gaggles of children and strollers and a lot of very well dressed mom's toting a couple children each to the boutiques with baby onesies and hair bows and baby bracelets. In New York, there were only a handful of children, no baby bracelets or onesie shops, and a lot more different people. It was refreshing to be somewhere different. I think sometimes its just good to get outside of Utah and just experience a different group of people and town.

We played with Parker at a park for a little bit and then headed back to Grandma's and then hit the road to Aunt Phyllis's house. It was an hour and a half ride through little towns with pretty houses. We ended up counting how many cemeteries we passed. We passed 13 of them! Woah! Lots of dead people.

Amy's party was nice. She's gorgeous. We had fun talking and seeing family that we hadn't seen for 12 years. We ate some yummy food and had fun chasing Kent all over the yard and trying to convince him to stay in the back yard and not run out into the street. It was a hot day, so we got tired after the party. We left and headed back to Grandma's house.

Before going home we ate dinner at a restaurant called VJ's and got a couple pizzas and ate way too much. It was so good. We ended up eating it for the next few days too. 

Sunday morning we woke up and got ready to make the trip back to Phyllis's house to attend Katy's bridal shower. We got ready and decided to leave early because the house was getting hot. We Utahans are not used to any kind of humidity. We made it to the party and got to talk with our family again. I really enjoyed being with them. I wish we lived closer and I hope I can visit more often. The party was hot again, but we at good food again, played some fun games and watched Katy open her presents. Lauren chased Kent for the first half of the party and I chased him for the last half. That kid is so cute and so active. All over the place. 

We drove home after taking a bunch of pictures together and headed up to Donna and David's house for a bon fire. The fire was HUGE and it was so hot to sit anywhere near it. We ended up having to back up our chairs quite a bit away, but it was very nice sitting there watching the fire roar against the backdrop of the beautiful countryside. 

We went to sleep that night with fans on us and slept pretty well.

On Monday we packed up our stuff and got ready to go to the airport for our 12:30 flight. We stopped for some bagels and to see a few shops and then made it to the airport and checked our bags and waited for our flight. 

Our flight was delayed with no definite idea of when it would actually leave. The east coast was having thunderstorms all over and it was really frustrating waiting with a screaming child. Luckily he found some kids to entertain him and chase him all over, so that saved us. Finally, after 6 hours of waiting, we figured out that we could no longer make our connecting flight and would end up being stuck in Washington DC if we went out that night. So I opted to have us stay an extra day and leave on Tuesday instead. So we called Mom and she picked us up. We ate some dinner and returned to Grandma's house for the night.

Tuesday morning we tried again. We made it to the airport and found out our flight was delayed again, but it ended up only leaving a half hour late. We finally got into the plane and left New York, heading to Chicago. When we walked into the Chicago airport there were SO many seas of people. It was crazy. We ate at the Chili's restaurant at the airport and had a big lunch. Then We found a little kiddie play place that totally saved us, and Kent played for two hours. Our flight to SLC was changed quite a few times. At first just the terminal, then it kept getting pushed back an hour and another hour until it was 3 hours delayed and we had again spent 5 to 6 hours waiting around for this flight. When we got on that last play I could have clicked my heals, I was so excited to be done with traveling. Three hours later we were in SLC and were able to find our luggage from the day previously and head home!

It was a long trip back home, but the trip was great and we had such a good weekend. Little buddy did so well on the plane. And Lauren did well too. (Being pregnant and having a kid sit on her lap was  interesting at times.) 

I'm glad we're back. I'm glad Kent isn't going to scratch me with his razor toe nails anymore. But it was fun and I'm so glad to have seen everyone!

I have lots more pictures, but it's a pain putting them up. But rest assured, Aunt Beth, you're making the book this year! ;)

Summer Adventures Part One

I haven't really blogged lately.

I've been having a great summer so far. In fact, the other day I realized that it was almost July and I kind of got a little bit of anxiety realizing that the summer is going really fast and that it will be over before I know it! Luckily I've been doing some fun things!

Annalie and I went to the redwood forest. Luckily I wrote about that trip. I would have forgotten a lot about that. I finally am able to add pictures so here's a few.

I went camping with Lynsie, Annalie, Brittni, and her dogs in Southern Utah the last weekend of April. We went to Sand Hallow Reservoir and had a blast. We tried out my huge new tent, spent some quality time in the sun, and played in the water. I was still in the throws of my stress fracture, and my right leg started swelling quite a bit during the trip. That was unfortunate. But we had fun. We had camp fires, we played some games, and had a good time being friends again. We went in my baby little car and somehow we fit everything in the car. It was quite the Tetris game, but we did it. I am so glad Lynsie and Brittni came. I love them so so much.

I went fishing with my brother and brother in law on memorial day. We woke up at 5:30 and were out on the water from 6 until 2 or so. We fished at a park in Highland, at Vivian park at the handicapped park, and then at Deer Creek. They caught two fish at Vivian park and nothing else. But I had fun reading and floating on my boat for a while. I sure love being in the sun.

I had 10 days off at the end of May. I was originally planning on attending a wedding that week, but it was postponed, so I had a bunch of time off. I ended up going to Bryce Canyon National Park with my mom and my dad. We camped for two nights, spent time by the fire, in the little lake on my boat, and trying to warm up in our tent because it got pretty cold. My dad ran in a race. It was a fun weekend. The campsite we were at was perfect. Hardly any people, forest, by a lake, and peaceful. I would definitely go back again.

My latest adventure was to New York to visit my mom's side of the family. I'll write about that one in more detail. I was excited to go on an airplane somewhere. I went with my sister and her little son to meet up with my mom. Super fun times.

I can't believe that June is over in a few days. I still have a few things left on my summer to do list and I am really excited about doing them. I just hope summer lasts long enough to do them all!

Family Trip

Well, now that It's been a few months, I thought I'd tell y'all about my family trip to Santa Cruz/San Francisco!

 

We talked my dad into renting a van for the occasion, the best idea we had. Mom, Dad, Ryan, Connor, and I were in the van and riding in style. I got the back seat. Captains chairs, in the middle, went to the boys. We started out driving on Tuesday in the morning and drove to Reno.
I actually read a book on the way. Chronicles of Narnia. Quite an accomplishment for me since I hate reading.

At first glance this picture is adorable.
But what really happened was that
Dad wanted to hold the Old Lady's
hand while crossing the street.

We got to Reno, and quickly figured out that unless you were there to get drunk or gamble, there was not much to do there. We walked around a little bit. Met up with family, ate dinner at a buffet, and got our rooms at Harrah's. Lowy, Kevin, Jon, and little Kent met up with us late that night. I got to share a room with Lowy, Jon, and Kent. Jon likes to sleep in his underwear and yell "Mindy, don't look!!" haha.
We got up, got ready, and went to Denny's for breakfast as a family. So much fun. I have the best family in the world.
We got back in the car and drove on to California. Ryan drove for part of it and didn't even kill us.
One of the funniest parts of driving was how fancy our van was. Two tvs, plugs for an X-box, dvd player, satellite radio. Lots of buttons and fancy things. Well, at one point we were driving in front of Lauren and Jon and my dad says, "Should I deploy the tacks?" As he reaches for a button, my mom says, "Don't! There's a baby in there!" We erupted in laughter for a long long time.
We made it to Santa Cruz and drove to our KOA cabin.

Our first view of the beach.

That cabin was made for 6 people to stay in it. And even that was pushing it. Of course, there were 9 of us! It was interesting, to say the least, to fit us all in there when we didn't have all of the beds out.

The bathroom was as big as
this mirror. True story.

We met up with family and tried to make some plans for the next few days. We drove down to the beach and got to play in the sand and watch the ocean for a little while.
I love the ocean. There is something so peaceful and calming about it. The sand is nice and soft and warm, the ocean makes soothing noises, the waves lap against you. The water was freezing! But we ran around and Kent got his first experience with the sand. He loved it.
We went back, ate dinner, and made a campfire.

Dad and Kevin had a "jiffy pop"
competition. Kevin won.

So cute.

Something I totally love about our family is that we all have gotten to the point where we like to go to sleep early, around 9pm, and wake up early. Around 6. It was great that we all ran on the same internal clock.
Mom and Dad got the master bed, Lowy and Jon were on the fold out bed, and kevin and ryan got the bunkbeds. Connor and I had air mattresses on the floor, underneath the kitchen table. We had to move some chairs outside to make room for us.
We found out really soon just how severe Connor's snoring problem has gotten. It was awful. We were miserable trying to get to sleep. Around 11 or so, Jon got up out of bed, told Lauren he was going to sleep in the car, and as he was leaving he said, "Connor, you suck!" SO funny.
We did get some sleep. Connor said he slept really well. We gave him a really hard time about it all day. We kept saying, "Every time I yawn today, Connor, I'm going to hit you!" We ended up taking a vote and he spent the next two nights sleeping in the car. Mom and Dad were a little mad that we banished him like that, but we did not feel bad one bit. He snores like crazy.

The next day was our Santa Cruz day. We spent the morning taking a ride on a train through the redwoods. It wwas a lot of fun. I love spending time with my family. Most of my cousins and aunts and uncles got into the caboose of the train. We were funny and loud. It was a pretty ride. At some points the train would go really slow and we thought we were going to get stuck on the hills, but it went well.
We drove down to the boardwalk afterwards and put on our swimsuits and played at the beach. The water was freezing cold, but it looked like too much fun, so me, Ryan, and Connor went into the water and played for a long while. We eventually got out and ended up burying Connor, Ryan, and Jon in the sand. Kent had a blast crawling all over the sand and playing.
After playing and getting some sun, we walked along the shops at the boardwalk. I bought a sweatshirt. We ate deep fried oreos and twinkies.
We went back to the KOA and went into the pool for a while to wash out some of the sand we had up in our crevices. Haha. We took showers, had another fire, and spent a while with our cousins talking and laughing about the gipsies that were in a campsite up the hill. "Gipsied!" was the quote of the trip, said by Kevin. Our cousins got a kick out of that. They also got a kick out of how the Crocketts turned in for the night at 9 again.
Friday was San Francisco day! The day we had planned months before and were so stoked about. We left the KOA and drove up to the city for a few hours. Ryan drove like a champ. We made it to the city and eventually found this shady parking garage. (Oh yeah, we didn't have enough seats for everyone, so we made Connor lay down in the trunk of the van! hahaha.) The parking garage was full, but the attendant let us park, telling us to leave the keys so he could move it out of the way of other cars if he needed to. It sounded a little weird, but they do that in Korea all the time, so we did it. Ryan accidentally made the car alarm go off in the garage. Talk about LOUD! ha. We left the garage and walked to the pier.
ALCATRAZ was next! Oh my goodness, I still can't get over how amazing of an experience Alcatraz was. Quite possibly the best thing I've ever seen. Riding the boat over was fun. It was a cold morning, so we were all sporting our sweaters and jackets. We made it to the island and after a brief orientation, we walked up to the cell house and got our walkmans for the audio tour.
It was amazing. It was so awesome to see where prisoners so many years ago lived. And I guess I've never really known anything about prisons, so to be able to see it first hand and imagine what it must have been like was incredible. I loved the stories of the inmates and the escape attempts. I loved seeing the bullet holes in the ground and the pictures of the scary people. I loved walking into the cells and imagining the loneliness of solitary confinement. The tour led us all over the cell blocks and outside to the exercise yard and up to the cafeteria. My family loved it all as well. Kevin said, "Don't you kind of want to root for the prisoners and want them to escape?" So true. It was such a neat experience.
We walked around a little bit more and then headed back to San Francisco on the boat.
Hunger struck. We took out our little map and decided to go up to Pier 39 and fisherman's wharf to find some food. We ended up eating at this amazing little place with some great chowder and sourdough bread bowls. So yummy. We then decided to make the trek to Ghiradelli square so we could get some chocolate. We just didn't really realize how far of a walk that would be.
We saw some pretty cool stuff on the way. A guy painted gold like a statue, street performers, bands, weirdos, markets. I love walking in the city with tons of people. Reminds me of Korea.
We finally made it after walking for what seemed like forever. The shop was PACKED with people. We each ordered an icecream and waited. It was delish. Kevin wanted to steal the cups they came in. But we didn't. We walked on a back street back to the parking garage. Grand total was 4 miles walked. Doesn't sound too bad unless you add in that we had a baby (or two....) in the group.
Our car was there and not stolen! Jon drove us home. I got to say, I don't know how anyone did vacations without google maps on a smart phone. I gave directions the entire trip to all of the drivers, even my dad. We did use the map that Mom insisted on buying and bringing a time or two, but my good old iPhone saved us.

Packed car. Connor in the trunk! Ha.

We got home that night and ate a family dinner with all of the extended family. I smiled and nodded like I could relate when my cousins talked about their kids and husbands. And I talked with the younger cousins who are still single and haven't popped out a kid yet. And it was fun. We took a few pictures, and then, in good old Crockett fashion, we were in bed around 9 or so.
Saturday morning we woke up and had to watch Lowy, Jon, Kevin, and Kent pack up. It was sad to see them go. We still had a lot of fun without them, but it would have been way more fun if they stuck around too.
The rest of us decided to go berry picking at a local field. It was a cold and overcast morning. I think I wore a long skirt and a sweatshirt. COLD. We picked blackberries and strawberries. I think we would have picked for hours and hours had we not had to have paid for what we picked. It was fun to pick them and they tasted AMAZING! We stopped by the shop and had some strawberry rhubarb pie. That was also amazing.
After that, we made our way to the beach to get in some more hours of quality beach time. It was still really cold and muggy out when we got there. I spent a good deal of time just digging and looking for shells. Cousin Jenny came with us too. She and Ryan took a nap. Connor and I ended up taking a long walk on the beach. It was so peaceful.
THEN the sun came out! And all of a sudden the beach and the waves and the water were so irresistible! We walked back to our spot quickly and run up to the car to grab our suits and suit up!
Ryan, Connor, and I then entered the (FREEZING COLD) water and stayed there for about 3 hours. It felt like 15 minutes! It was a blast. We had a boogie board and after that broke (ha) we body surfed the waves, yelling and screaming! Our favorite thing to say was "SHEE-HAW!" Don't ask. Also, my personal favorite, "Son of a beach!" haha.
We yelled and screamed and ate a bunch of sand and salt water and finally decided to get out. We packed up our stuff and left the beach. What a wonderful day.

Sunburned.

We snuck back into the KOA we were at and hurried to use the gipsies' showers. That was nice to be able to shower. We got back in the car and drove a few hours to Stockton and stayed the night there. On the way we stopped at the Garlic fest and had some pizza at a local joint. It was amazing pizza. Cloves of garlic on the pizza. YUM.
As we sat, waterlogged and tired in our hotel room that night, Ryan and I started to prank call Mom and Dad's room. Then Ryan ordered a chocolate shake. And Dad said, "Sure." and gave us his credit card to go out and find some chocolate shakes! Woot woot! We got some at burger king.
After a Sunday morning continental breakfast, we headed back into the car and drove over to Yosemite National Park. It was crowded. And hot. And we were sun burned. I'm sure Dad wasn't too happy that we were all just lazy and tired and didn't want to do much. He was willing to let us rent horses or go hike or go on a boat or something. But we were lame. We did stop at a gorgeous lake and sat there having lunch. Dad kept daring Ryan to swim out to the middle of the lake and tell a "Columbus" joke to them. (What bus killed thousands of native Americans? Columbus.) Ha.
I ended up having to pee, so we had to leave the lake and drive on.

Mom and Dad and Half Dome

We drove for what seemed like forever and almost stopped at a super creepy town for the night. Instead, we kept driving and stayed in Eli, NV. Quite an interesting place too.
Monday morning we got up and drove home. Good times.

Took this by using the timer on Mom's
camera. Impressive.

This trip was so fun. SO FUN. I loved almost every moment of it. (I did not like Connor's snoring.)

Dad and Ryan, in adjoining hotel rooms,
doing the same thing. 

I love my family. All of them. I have the best parents ever, the funnest siblings. They were the best part of this trip. The only thing missing from this perfect trip was Davy, Nat, Camden, and Alli. Other than that, perfect! Loved it.