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So I want to start blogging more frequently but don't always have things to blog about.  This is where you (small audience) help come up with ideas to blog about.  And.....................GO!!

November Continued...

So I kinda failed with keeping up with my November posts... So I'm just going to do a list of more things I am thankful for:

Our house
My husband
My Ward
The gospel
My Heavenly Father
Family
Friends
Our cars
Food
Candy
Hot chocolate
Blankets
Fireplaces

OK now I'm just typing things I see. Anyway, for Thanksgiving, Josh and I went to Denver on Thursday to be with my parents and my sister. We had a great day playing games and of course eating lots of great food.On Friday, we went to see The Van Gogh exhibit at the Art Museum. And then headed to the airport to fly out to Utah.

At the Airport, we had a delicious dinner and then headed to our gate. Our gate was practically in the basement because we were flying to Provo which is a tiny little airport. As we walked up to our gate, I noticed 4 Kids running around. I said "Josh, O MY GOSH THAT'S STEPHANIE NIELSEN AND HER FAMILY! I was totally star struck. So I spent the next hour or so getting up the courage to talk to her. Finally, as we were boarding our flight, for the first time, I was standing next to her and said "I don't want to interrupt, but I read your blog every day and am so inspired by you." She then asked where we were from and why we were great to Utah. She was so genuinely interested in our conversation. She also is gorgeous and her kids are adorable. I felt so honored to have met her and talked to her.

Now about our flight. So we first boarded at 6 and soon after they told us there was a mechanical issue and they were trying to resolve it. About ten minutes later, they said they were still trying to figure out the problem and that we had to deplane. For the next 2 hours they gave updates every fifteen minutes or told us they works have an update in fifteen minutes. At 8, they told us that we had to wait for new plane that would get there at 9. At 9, we boarded our plane. While sitting on the plane, we watched our "broken plane" take off. Grr. Finally we took off and were on our way. We landed and then headed to Bobby and Lindsay 's (brother and sister-in-law) house. The next morning, we got to meet our first nephew, John Casey Heidbrink. We bought him this funny mustache pacifier.

He is such a cutie! We loved spending the next couple of days ooohing and awwwing over him. It's been a great November and now it's DECEMBER...which means CHRISTMAS! HURRAY! :-)

November 6-10

It's time for more Thanksgiving posts.

November 6- I'm thankful for my family! They are with me through Thick and Thin and are always there for me no matter what.  I was also lucky enough to marry into two AWESOME families (Bodily and Heidbrink). Families are such a great blessing!

November 7- This isn't a Thanksgiving story, but it did happen in November.
On November 8th of this year, I went down to Denver to go to the Temple and to visit a friend.  We were sitting with her son and she asked him, "What sound does an Elephant make?"

Without missing a beat, he turns to us and goes " AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! MEOW!"  We both died of laughter. The End

November 8-Here's another Thanksgiving curse story:

When I was in 5th grade, my family went to Florida for Thanksgiving.  We went to visit my Grandma, who lives there, and my Aunt and Uncle came down from Chicago too.

We had decided to go out boating a few days before Thanksgiving.  We had rented a speed boat and were just driving around for fun.  We decided to go out into the ocean (we were just in a little inlet).

As we were heading out to the ocean, we had to go over some waves.  As we headed over one set of waves, the boat and all of us went up in the air and then came down.

Well, when we came back down, my mom hit extra hard.  She started screaming and fell over in pain.  we immediately slowed down and tried to figure out my mom was screaming.

Luckily there is a boat dock for the hospital right along the water so we just drove the boat right up.

The paramedics came out with a back board and a neckbrace.  Meanwhile, my sister and I are crying because we know our mom is really hurt and we don't know what else to do.  The paramedics and my dad took my mom into the hospital and my sister, my aunt, my uncle, my grandma, and me went to return the boat.

We later went to visit her and found out that she had crushed two vertebrae in her back.

As a result, we had to delay our flight home.  We spent an additional two weeks, past when we had planned to go home, in Florida until my mom was released from the hospital and was able to fly home.

It was a very long recovery and we are all relieved that it didn't paralyze her!
  
November 9- Another one of my favorite Thanksgiving foods is STUFFING!! If I could pick only one Thanksgiving food to eat for the next year, stuffing would be it.

November 10- The pilgrims' cows came to America on what ship?

The MOOO-flower! 

NOVEMBER!

I love the fall because it is cooler and there are fun holidays and it's almost Christmas!
November is also Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving because it means lots of yummy food and spending time with family. In honor of Thanksgiving, for each day I'm going to tell a funny Thanksgiving joke, or tell a funny Thanksgiving story. I may even throw in some stuff I'm thankful for.  I won't write posts everyday but I will when I think about it.  So here we go....

November 1- I'll start with something I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for m my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have a testimony that this church is true! I'm so grateful for my Heavenly Father and all he has blessed me with. Because of the Gospel, I am sealed to my best friend for all of time and eternity!

November 2- It was the first time the blonde was eating Thanksgiving dinner without her family. Trying to re-enact the tradition, she prepared a dinner for herself alone. The next day, her mother called to see how everything went.

"Oh, mother, I made myself a lovely dinner, but I had so much trouble trying to eat the turkey!" said the daughter.

"Did it not taste good?" her mother asked.

"I don't know," the blonde said. "It wouldn't sit still!"

November 3- In my family, we have a Thanksgiving curse. Almost every year something bad happens.  My first story is about how I was plagued by the curse.

When I was in 3rd grade, my family went to Aspen for Thanksgiving. Our plans for the day were to go Ice Skating and then out to a fancy Thanksgiving dinner.

We had been skating for about an hour, when we decided it was time to go. I shared over to my dad and said "look dad, I can stop!" I stopped and then fell over. The fall broke my tibia and I started screaming.

We headed to the hospital and they had to call in a doctor from his dinner to xray and cast my leg.

The restaurant where we were supposed to go, offered to bring us dinner. They showed up with a full dinner on China plates!

I was in a cast up to my hip and in a wheel chair for 3 months and then a cast just below my knee and crutches for the next 6 months.

That is just one of many Thanksgiving curse stories.

November 4- One of my favorite Thanksgiving foods is canned cranberry. I love how it keeps the shape of the can and that you get slices!

November 5- Why couldn't the teddy bear eat any more Thanksgiving dinner?
He was already stuffed.

MEXICO!

We went to Mexico for a week in the end of May and beginning of June.  We flew into Cancun and then drove an hour to our resort in Playa del Carmen.

We stayed at the Iberostar Tucan.  The property is actually shared with the Iberostar Quetzal, so that means the pool is huge, there are twice as many restaurants, and the property is GINORMOUS!!  The restaurants have great food.  The restaurant options are: two all-you-can-eat buffets, four dress-up restaurants, and two beach/poolside restaurants.  For breakfast we ate at the buffets, for lunch we ate down at the pool, and for dinner we mostly did the buffet.  We went to two of the dress-up restaurants though.  The restaurants we went to were Japanese and seafood.  At night there were shows to see.  During the day, we spent a lot of time by/in the pool/ocean.  We bought a ball that can bounce on water from Brookstone before we went.  By the time we left, two other groups had bought the balls from the gift shop at the front of the hotel.  When we weren't doing that we did some other pretty fun stuff.

One day, we went on a tour to Tulum, Chichen Itza, and a Cenote called Ik Kil. Both of the ruins, are ruins of the Mayan People.  We went with a tour group called Alma's LDS Tours. We loved hearing about the similarities of their beliefs to the LDS church.  Similarities like: their God was a white, bearded man, that he was born of an Earthly mother and a Heavenly Father, that he came to Earth and will come again one day. There are too many similarities on here to list but look them up or ask me!

We were picked up at our hotel in a van by our tour guide.

This is our tour guide, Miguel 

First we drove to Tulum where we looked at ruins for about an hour and a half.  Here are some pictures from that.

Tulum literally means "walled" and the city of Tulum was surrounded by walls on three sides and backed onto a steep cliff that overlooked the ocean.  Inside of the walls was where rulers and priests lived, while the commoners lived outside of the walls.   

The temples were places of worship and only the highest priest was allowed inside.  In order to pay reverence to their God, the steps leading to the Temple were so narrow that the priest would have to walk up them sideways and therefore would never have their back to God.  The doors were also very low, meaning the priest would have to bow to enter.

The Mayans were known for their amazing architecture.  In the picture above, on the Spring Equinox (also considered the birth of their God), the Sun would perfectly shine between the 2 buldings on the left.  The light would then shine directly into the Temple of Fertility (picture below). 

From there, we drove to Chichen Itza.  This was a much bigger ruin.  Here are some pictures from there.

This is the main attraction at Chichen Itza,  El Castillo or the Temple of Kukulkan (The Feathered Serpent).  Chichen Itza was one of the largest Mayan cities, built around the 9th century AD.  It is also one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Each of the pyramid's four sides (representing the four seasons) has 91 steps which, when added together and including the temple platform on top as the final 'step', produces a total of 365 steps.  The current temple is actually built on top of a smaller identical temple.

This is the side of the main temple.  During the spring and autumn Equinoxes, the Descent of the Feathered Serpent occurs.  The Mayans believed that their God would return in the form of a Feathered Serpent.  The snake on the side is built in such a way that during those days the northwest corner of the pyramid casts a series of triangular shadows against the western stairs that creates an illusion of the serpent is slowly descending day by day until the whole serpent appears.

 

This is what the final serpent looks like. (Clicky thing)

 This is the ball court at Chichen Itza.  Here is a description of the game played here.

That little hoop is where the teams had to get the ball through.

This was where the priests and rulers would sit to watch the game.

These are depictions of the skulls of the Team Captains of the winning team.  The losing team cut off the heads of the winning teams and then the heads were drawn in memory.

After Chichen Itza, we drove to Ik Kil.  Ik Kil is a cenote.  It is a natural swimming hole.  Here are some pictures:

This is what it looked like from above.  We had to walk down steps (see below picture) to get to it.

Here we are jumping in! The water was FREEZING. But definetly worth it after a SCORCHING hot day with very high humidity.

  

The water was so clear! You could see tons of fish swimming around.

This is me jumping from the 20ft high platform!

Overall, we all really enjoyed our day!  At the end of the day, our guide gave us a gift.  It was a recreation of this stone carving.  The carving is believed to be of the Tree of Life as seen in Lehi's vision.   

 

We had a great day and would recommend this tour company or a tour like it to anyone visiting this area of Mexico.

Another excursion we did was to Xel-Ha.  Xel-Ha is a natural waterpark.  There is a lazy river, snorkeling, zip lines, cliff jumping, bike riding  swimming with the dolphins, and so much more.  The way it works is that you buy a wristband that lets you do almost everything (scuba, dolphins, and a few other things are an additional fee. We drove about an hour to get there.  When we got there, we got our lockers and got ready to go out. I hadn't been feeling good, so we got me some Pepto Bismal and I was good to go.  Then we headed to get breakfast.  After breakfast, we went on the lazy river.  This lazy river was a natural river that took about 45 minutes to float down.  You got to go down in either single or double tubes.

Along the way there were zip lines and spots to jump off cliffs.

 We did that a few times and then went to the main lagoon.  Here you can float and snorkel around (the snorkel stuff was free).

 We saw a ton of rays along the bottom of the lagoon.  We touched them.  They're slimy.

Other than those trips, we just lazed around the resort.  We did walk into town one night but quickly returned because of the high humidity.  Great TRIP!

May Through Present

In the beginning of May, we went back to Estes Park for the 24th Annual Duck Race.  Basically, people can buy a rubber duck and chose from a list of organizations where they want that money to be donated to.

The Ducks are then dumped into the river.  

The Lady with the stick is in charge of getting ducks unstuck!

They then float down the river. If your duck is one of the Lucky Duckies, you win a prize!

This day was a lot of fun; enjoying the duck race, walking around Estes, and eating Ice Cream.

We also went to the Sealing of Josh's cousin Marissa and her now husband in Utah.

I also had my End of the Year Field Trip with my class.  Every year, the 5th graders at University Schools spend a week traveling around Colorado and Utah.  This year's trip included: The Sand Dunes, Fort Garland, Pagosa Springs, Mesa Verde, Arches, and Glenwood Springs.  We (50 students, 3 teachers, and 10 parents) traveled in a charter bus and parent cars.  We had gorgeous weather the entire trip.  It was a great trip and I think I slept for the next 3 days straight after we got back. Here are some pictures:

This is what our sleeping arrangements looked like.

 Double O Arch

 Delicate Arch

The next week was the last 2 days of school and I officially finished my first year of teaching! HURRAY!! 

The next  week we left for Playa Del Carmen, Mexico (Pam, Richard: In laws, Josh, Cam, Scott, Bobby, and Lindsay. Missed Mark and Camille.  =( Brothers and Sisters in Law).  The next post is completely devoted to that trip.

June was a pretty mellow month.  We spent time with Dehncke family, spent time with Heidbrink Family, and went to the Greeley Stampede.

In July, Mark, Camille, and Scott came out  to Colorado for 5 days.  We went to the Stampede again and went swimming at least 2 times a day =).   

Other events for the month included: an airshow in Wyoming, Olympics, and a James Taylor concert.

Pics from the airshow:

Because of my AWESOME Uncle Stephen, we got to go see James Taylor at Red Rocks!! This was Josh's first concert.  Before the concert, we got to walk around backstage and even go ON THE STAGE!! Then we watched some of the show from the crowd and some of the show from backstage.  We were especially glad we could go back stage when it started to DUMP rain.  The power went out from lightning in the area, but after about 2 hours, the rain stopped and the show went on.  We had so much fun and loved the concert.

 The Stage

Our view from backstage as it DUMPED!

We had so much fun and loved the concert!

August was Cam's Birthday!!! And we got a fire pit.

In September, we went to Aspen a few times.  SEE ASPEN POST!  We also went out to Virginia to visit Josh's Grandpa, Richard's Dad.  It was so great getting to meet him and see his AMAZING poker skills.

So far in October, quite a bit has happened.  General Conference (more on that in future blogs) was the first weekend.  The next week I helped out with an intervention for a child with behavior problems at University Schools.  That weekend we went to Utah for Camille's baby shower and Josh's cousin's farewell before she left on her mission to Brazil.  We also bought a new jeep that weekend! And have already been 4-wheeling in it! The jeep is manual transmission so I have been learning how to drive stick shift.  EEK!

This past week we went 4-wheeling, I went down to the Temple and hung out with my "soulfriend" and now we are getting ready to head out to Utah on Friday for Josh's Grandpa's funeral.

Well there you have it!! A full year of the doings of Cam and Josh!