Ta-Da!

*Note: I'm not sure why the pictures on this post are so tiny, but they should be click-able if you want to see the bigger size. *

I got crafty! I've been wanting to put our last name up somewhere in some kind of cutesy format. After hearing my Mom talk about her decorating plans for her living room, I came up with this:

Isn't it adorable? I fell in love with the "Family" piece as soon as I saw it. And it was on sale! I came up with the "Emmons" part all by myself. That's blue scrapboook paper as a background, with a slight pattern to it. Don't you just love it? Well, don't tell me if you don't, cause I do! =] It's going up over our living room window. As soon as I get the right size nails, I'll post a pic of it!

Also, here are some fun pics from our family visits:

Emmons' Visit!

Grand Teton National Park with the Emmons family! It was better than Yellowstone. We didn't see any animals there except elk without antlers. What's that about?

Zach, Spencer, and Dad Emmons. Reading about... geography, I think. I tell you, they're a bunch of smarties.

Sun going down behind Grand Teton. We decided it would be a great place to see the sunrise, with the light against the mountains instead of behind them.

Garner's Visit!

My Mom took us to the Playmill Theatre in West Yellowstone

Here she is fighting the crowds. Hail the conquering hero! We were barely able to reserve seats online before it sold out!

After the show, "The Foreigner." It was HILARIOUS. We highly recommend it.

Picnic lunch at Park St. Park. Jillian saw the merry-go-round and asked, "What's that?" We were shocked. So the Sarah and Steph schooled her with their awesome merry-go-round abilities.

After a visit to the Cocoa Bean, Mom and I thought, "We can do that." This is a picture of our beautiful, homemade chocolate mint frappe. Ohhh yeah. The strawberry one was even better, but that pic is on Mom's camera.

We girls pampered outselves with some mud masques. Jillian didn't quite enjoy the tingling feeling like the rest of us did. She kept saying, "It's getting hard on my face! It feels too tight!" We explained that was actually what it SHOULD be doing, nothing was going wrong. =]

Stephanie and Sarah were very impressed with Rexburg's large dandelion-esque Wishers.

Now that everyone's gone, Zach and I feel like empty nesters. lol. There's lots more, but it's month-end, and I'm headed to an 11-hour shift in a little while. So, time to gear up! Love you all!

-Stacy

P.S. The frappe recipe for anyone who's interested:

Chocolate Frappe

1 envelope hot cocoa mix (we like the mint cocoa)

3 tsp hot water

1/2 c. milk

1 c. crushed ice

Make a paste out of the hot water and cocoa mix. Blend the rest together until liquified. Serve in a fudge-drizzed cup and top with whipped cream. Yum!

Fruit Frappe

3/4 c. fresh fruit, chopped (my favorite is peach)

2 T sugar

1/3 c. milk

1 cup crushed ice

Blend together. SOO delicious if you mix in some whipped cream at the end. My favorite is peach frappes.

Summer in limbo...

So, Zach let me drag him to a 1920's mystery dinner last month right before my birthday. It was a blast, and I finally got the picture they took of us there.

Turns out, I was the murderer, even though everyone suspected Zach! ha ha ha.

Well, anyway, here's an update on life so far.

• My grandmother died a week ago, and I'm having a little bit of trouble getting that to sink in. Luckily I was able to go down to the funeral and be with my family, which really helped. I really didn't want to leave home, because it was her house. It's strange, because that's the hardest part for the rest of my family, living with her memories. I think it's because I feel so far away from her memory while I'm in Rexburg.

• Our house is looking more and more like a real home! Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, we have an actual bed with a box spring, headboard and everything! They also gave us a loveseat and counter-height chairs. I set up our black bookshelf in the hallway, and it makes the living room seem more cozy. Also, we found our mail keys, so I get to sift through junk mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Emmons. =]

• Zach has been amazing, getting up and working all day, even though he's still short on sleep from our 16 hr drive on Thursday. He's been taking a lot of time to be sweet to me, and take care of me emotionally. I am really blessed to have such a husband.

• Next week Zach's parents and little brother are coming to visit! They'll be here for a week, and the day they leave, my parents and little sisters are coming! So we'll have about 2 full weeks of family, which we're really looking forward to.

• I got to spend my product check at work today, and used it almost entirely on girly stuff. I got a $30 moisturizer, $15 mud masque, $15 concealer, and some pamper-worthy foot scrub. All for freeeeee! I'm planning on throwing a girls party for me and my mother-in-law, then again for my mom and sisters.

• I made Chocolate chip cookie bars for the first time in a while, and they were a huge hit with Zach. I splurged and used Guitard chocolate chips and white flour. Sooooo delicious.

Well, a truly epic thunderstorm is starting up, splattering me with rain through the screen. Zach and I were thinking about going to the caves with some friends, but maybe we'll have a quiet night at home watching the lightning. Hope you all have a great weekend!

No place like home

I'm right there with you, Dorothy. But there's also no place like Rexburg. I really miss my friends, the way of life, my friends, my new bike, my friends, everything within walking distances, my friends.... did I mention my friends? Shout out to all of them, who are moving onto bigger and more exciting things.

Someone asked me today what I'm doing with all my time now that I'm home. I had to think pretty hard before figuring it out. lol. Most of the time the day is over before I realize that I haven't done anything. Pretty much, I've just been acting like a kid on summer break. Filling my days with a whole lot of relaxing nothingness.

1. Playing with my nieces/nephews/sisters
2. Running errands and hanging out with my mom
3. Goofing off with Steph (see picture above)
   
4. Earning frequent flyer miles with Redbox. (Do you think they do that???)
   
5. Doing odd jobs for my grandma
6. Reading books (Just finished the 4th Fablehaven and the sequel to The Mysterious Benedict Society. I love young adult fiction!)
7. Jogging in the mornings with my friend Corinne from Institute. It's only the second day, and I'm sore.
8. I got to meet two Ukrainian kids! They came with a foster children's group a week ago and are staying with a family in my ward. They called my dad and asked him to help translate, so I went with him. It was pretty exciting, but Alyona was really hard to understand.
   

Even though I have been productive in some ways, I know I need to earn money for next semester. Luckily, I found an opportunity! My aunt (who lives about three hours away) is having her baby next week and needs someone to drive her around, so my Grandma hired me. I'm leaving for Snowflake in a few hours to hang with her and my four cousins for a week. We'll also try and crank out the birth announcement.

Wish me luck!

P.S. The Critical Language Scholarship (that sends students to RUSSIA to learn RUSSIAN for FREE) is opening up applications for next summer's program soon!! Eeeeep! Since I'm already planning on going, I can't wait to apply. lol.

The Best Friends in Life are Free

My best friends have been 100% there for me! I hit what felt like a crisis in the past few days, and suddenly none of my friends had anything better to do than listen to me. They insisted they were free, and had nothing else going on (even though one of them dropped what she was doing and literally ran down to see if I was okay). Even my friends who are out of town have been here for me in a very real way. It's amazing!

I was given an awesome book called "Hearing the Voice of the Lord," by Gerald Lund. It's reminding me of the other priceless gifts I've received through the Atonement and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. I can't put it down! I highly recommend it. (As a bonus feature, it's hard-bound like a bunch of my favorite fiction books. I don't know why that makes a difference, but I got excited as soon as I noticed that.)

In addition, Bishop Bishop called me Sunday night and asked me to give a talk on personal revelation. Perfect, wonderful timing! I'm very excited.

EDIT: I saw this Jane Austen quote on Sam's page and decided to steal it. Here it is, every girl's problem: "Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?"

Photo Project

So a few weeks ago my Grandma asked me if I would merge a picture we have of my Grandpa with a picture of her, so we had a more "recent" picture of them together. (He died after only three years of marriage, when my Mom was two-ish.)

Today I finally finished it. It's been a really rewarding project, despite all the stress it's caused. =]

Here's the before:

And here's the after:


Soon I'll be doing one for my Grandma's friend Iris. She wants a composite picture of her parents.

Well, I'm gonna go now because my sister BECCA is here for a surprise visit with my niece. Fun times!!!

♥ Stacy

A Thousand Words

Okay, here's a quick peek at what I've been up to, via lots of pictures. =]

Babysitting!
My cousins love to be photographed, so we got out the dress-up box.

The two youngest, Isaac and Lily:


Isaac and me:


Aaron and me:


The oldest, Andrew:


I also got to watch my nephew Kenny the other night, and he did very well! He sure loves his Papa and Aunt Jill.





Last night, my little sisters and I had a party while my parents were on their date. Feast your eyes on THIS!

[If you can't tell, it's Batman, Spiderman, Robin, and Wonder Woman.]

Today we had a hot dog roast, despite the heat, because my grandma had a bunch of old papers she wanted burned. Then we just hung out in the shade playing games and eating gummy bears. Yay for family fun!

Stephanie and her roasting skills:


Mom and Dad hard at work in more sunshine than should naturally be seen in January:


Jilly's s'more face.

The Hearts of the Children

Guess what people?

I have been working diligently on my family history work, like a good little Rel 261 student, but it's turned into more than that. Every assignment and every project has pulled me in deeper until now I can finally say that I am actually addicted to genealogy! The greatest part is that it's contagious. A while back I offered to save my PAF file (all the family info I have) onto my sister Isabelle's computer... and we ended up spending about three hours researching online. Just like that.

Well today my sister Becca heard one of her friends casually mention that she was going to Holladay, Utah to student teach. Well, that's my Mom's maiden name! So Becca, just to satisfy plain old curiosity looked it up and found the city website. She sent it to me, and I recognized the name of the pioneer company who founded it! I told her the city was founded by our great x 4 grandfather, who I have been researching! She got a little more curious and decided to look the place up on Google Earth. She found Holladay Memorial Park just a few miles outside of Salt Lake, located near a little stream called Spring Creek. Well, this pioneer ancestor of ours was buried in a place called Spring Creek back in 1862. Bingo. Out of nowhere, without really meaning to, she discovered my great-great-great-great-grandfather's [probable] grave site. We even found a virtual tour of the cemetery! So when we drive home this Christmas we're going to try and make a little side trip to take pictures of any Holladays we can find there. In the meantime, she is beginning to get just as addicted as I am! (If you care to get just as excited as we are, check out our family history blog, holladayseason.blogspot.com. I also uploaded a tutorial I created for PAF beginners!)

So please, please! Do yourself a favor and just start somewhere; anywhere. Even if you can't find anything new, I promise you'll be blessed!

Love, Stacy