Jake and Alex

New year and new resolutions

2012-01-13T07:24:00.000-08:00

Its been forever since I've been on blogger and posted anything about our lives. But with the new year and the BIG new adventure we are about to embark on I know it is time that I keep a record of our lives because this is a time that I never want to forget. I am so excited for this new year and all that it will bring our little but growing family. I know it's already half way into the month of January but this year I am going to make and hopefully keep my new years resolutions by writing them down for a constant reminder. So here goes..My resolutions for 2012

1. Be Grateful: I have been blessed with so much and I don't take the time to appreciate all that I am givien. I want to show my appreciation to Jake for all that he does for me and for our family, all the sacrifices he makes to be a better husband and soon father. I want to express my gratitude for my Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ more often. They have given me so much and I want to deserve the blessings they have blessed me with.

2. Exercise: Isn't this one on everyone's resolutions? I want our baby boy to be healthy and happy and I know the way to do this is eating right and exercizing. I want to jog/walk 3 miles a day 4 days a week with some light weight lifting until our baby arrives and then pick up the pace come July. I want to keep my pregnancy weight in control and embrace the changes my body is going through. Run a half marathon in September with my mom and actually EJNOY running. Be back to my pre pregnancy weight before our cruise during Thanksgiving and even more fit than before. I want to be around a long time for my little boy and want to make healthy a lifestyle more than a chore. Encourage Jake to be healthy and be a positve example in his exercise goals as well.

3. Cook healthy dinners: Become a homemaker by preparing healthy dinners that even Jake will eat. Don't be afraid to try something new and don't take it personal if it isn't a hit. Wake up a little early and make lunches for us. Bake more, I know I said be healthy but a good homemade treat is always a perfect way to end the day.

4. Be a better wife, friend, daughter, sister, employee, etc etc.....The list could go on and on but I want to make all my relationships in life a little stronger this year. Reach out to people and not wait for someone to come to me. Be a better more caring person in general and that will strengten all of the relationships I have with others.

5. Participate more in ward activites: Go to activities and get to know people in the ward. They could turn out to be some of my closest friends. Magnify my calling and pratice the piano more by finding new prelude music and being at leat 10 minutes early to play the prelude music. Actually visit teach, I know I can't be perfect but make a sincere effort to be 100% this year. Just talk to people at church.

6. Take more pictures and record them: Time is just flying by so fast and I want to document with pictures the things going on in our life. Also have home videos because they capture some of our most fondest memories and they are fun to show posterity in the future.

7. Go to the temple monthly: We live so walking distance to the temple and don't make it there nearly enough! Set aside a night every month to make it to the temple with Jake.

8. Use time wisely: I always feel better when I have a productive day. Get things done that need to get done and don't put them off them off for tomorrow, why put off what you can do today? Watch less TV and do different activites together as a family.

9. Be an awesome mom: I know that could be an ongoing goal but always strive to do my best everyday. It may not always be easy but put him and his daddy first. And know that I will need some me and time and not be afraid to take some of that every once in while. When it is deserved.

10. Become more spiritual: Make time in the mornings to have personal prayer/scripture study. Read the Book of Mormon all the way through before baby boy comes at the end of May. Bear my testimony at least one time this year in sacrament but share it more often with those that I love. Take the time to really understand and utilize the atonement in my life and strengthen my relationship with Jesus Christ. Write my brother letters on a weekly basis and share my testimony with him and be a good support system.

11. Study spanish: This has been a goal of mine for a long time that I keep putting off for another day. I want our children to grow up with spanish in the home and in order for that to work I need to learn myself. Study spanish 3 times a week and don't be afraid to practice with the patients who speak spanish at work. I want to be able to talk with Jake and my brother in Spanish by the time Jackson comes home in November.

That is a lot of things to work on this year and I know its not all going to be easy. But I want to improve myself so I can bless the lives of others not only mine.

Hopefully this blog won't be forgotten about by me anymore and I will be able to keep our lives updated on a regular basis. That's all for now and I wish everyone a Happy New Year! Next post will have pictures and be a little more exciting :)

Oregon

2010-09-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

I love the Oregon coast! This was Jake's first time and it didn't disappoint. We had so much fun hanging out with family and enjoying the freezing beach! I think I only pulled out my swimsuit once the whole trip. We decided we definitely need to visit more than once every 6 years.

Peru in a nutshell

2010-02-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

We finally have the internet so I guess I won't have any excuses for not blogging anymore. We've been home form Peru longer than we were there and I really do miss it. Even though the living conditions were not the greatest the memories were amazing! We made so many great friends down there and hope to return some day and visit. Here are some highlight pictures of our trip.

We had so much fun getting to know the Tippetts, such a great couple :)

The lovely hairless Peruvian dogs, they were everywhere!

Jake and I just hanging out at one of the many ruins we visited

Our favorite place in Peru....Papa Johns. We went there without fail every Thursday night for buy one get one free. Yum!

I turned the big 22 while there...the sad thing is Jake worked the whole day! Sun up til sun down

The cutest babies live in Peru, they have pretty good odds though because there are millions of kids!

Manchita, she lived on the roof

Fresh fruit everywhere we went, oh so good

Mary was on every corner and even in the malls

Young kids would do trick in the streets and sell food in between traffic. They were very entertaining but the povert was really sad.

Ha, I just thought this was a gross picture. Would you want to buy your meat that was hanging up covered in bugs? Me neither.

An outdoor Costco

One of the many animals we saw in the Amazon

I was so scared to fly in an airplane in Peru...but I made it!

Even though we didn't make it down to Machu Picchu we did go up north to another city on top of the mountains. Kuelap

Peru reminded me so much of the movie The Emperors New Groove, I'm pretty sure it was based in Peru

These were the houses of the village in Kuelap, they were still living up there in the 1920's.

This was one of Jenna and my favorite places to go while our husbands were working so hard. Many sunburns were developed here!

I went to my first and last bull fight. Those poor animals!

I'm so grateful that we had the opportunity of a lifetime to go and live in Peru. It was so fun to get to spend 24/7 with Jake and live in those humble conditions but I am definitely proud to be and American!

Haunchaco

2009-10-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast the time has flown! We've already been here two months and only have one left. Wow...
For my birthday I wanted to do something fun so I wouldn't be so homesick so we headed off to the beach Haunchaco. It's not exactly the most beautiful beach I've ever seen but, hey, when there's sun, there's happiness. We had a good time just walking on the sand, people watching, and actually being WARM for a change (note: Trujillo, Peru is freezing! ). We rode in some little home made boats in the ocean and shopped in the shops. It's crazy how many people will just set up little stores on the bottom level of their houses or ride a bike around town with goodies. It's a whole different culture here and I found they have a lot more pride. At least they are selling something and not just begging on the corner. Since my birthday, Jenna and I have ventured off to the beach many times and found that it's not as scary as we thought it would be in Peru, however, EVERYONE stares and EVERYONE is pregnant...ha, they think it's so weird that we've been married for over a year and don't have babies on our hips. It's been fun here and I've enjoyed waking up whenever I please and not having anywhere to be ever. I must admit, it does get a little boring at times and I do miss fall mucho. Hopefully there won't be snow on the ground before we get home and I'll get a little taste of what I was missing. Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!!!

Oh and Jake thought this would be a new good look. Go Aggies!

2009-09-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

We spent the next few days getting settled in and Brad and Jenna still needed to find a place to live so a lot of the week was devoted into finding a place for them to call home.

Roky’s is one of Jake’s favorite restaurants so far, they claim to be the best chicken around.

Jake’s favorite dish is called Pollo Saltado. Its chicken tomatoes and onions over French fries with rice on the side. They absolutely love French fries here; they are served with everything and anything you could imagine. I’m still trying to figure out the rice and potato mix.

Delicious. This is my favorite meal called Tallarin. It’s a whole bunch of noodles with peppers and onions. Sometimes they serve it with spinach as well. Oh so good. These two dishes are what we eat a lot of. I’ve eaten more carbs probably in the last three weeks than I’ve eaten in a whole year! But it’s wonderful. However, Peruvian food does have its downsides. You have to stay away from any fruits or vegetables that you can’t peel and you can’t drink the water here. If you do, you won’t be a very happy camper the next day.

Most people don’t have cars here so taxis are everywhere you look! Most of the time they are pretty cheap but it starts to add up. Here we are all squished in the backseat. Jake’s holding the famous soda here. Inca Kola, it’s delicious. The bad thing about beverages here is no one really drinks water because you have to purchase it out of a bottle, so all you get is pop. And for someone that doesn’t really enjoy soda it’s been quite the adjustment.

One night Jake and Brad played soccer with some friends in the ward down here and we just chilled with these cute ninos all night. They were so cute and so excited to find we were Americans, but we couldn’t understand anything they were saying! The Spanish is coming along but its hard work. I am learning little by little and can understand and speak more every day.

Huaca de la Luna…this is the famous ruins here in Trujillo. We had an English guide teach us about the ruins. The funny thing is we couldn’t even understand her English! We would’ve been better off having the boys translate for us and her just speak in Spanish.

All of the bricks are original; they just started excavating this site about 15 years ago so it’s pretty new. This is where they believe they did the human sacrifices.

This picture was of their God. All of the faces are slightly different because they would carve everything by hand. The colors were also symbolic but I don’t really remember when they were symbolizing.

Me and Jakers at the dig site

Sorry the picture is kinda blurry but this is an empty tomb that was robbed by the grave robbers.

The lovely Brad and Jenna. You can see the layers of the temple where depicted with different paintings. There were 5 layers of the temple and each layer would consist completely of bricks to make the next level and so on.

Here is the outside of the temple and that was pretty much all of it. It was really interesting to see an ancient civilization. I always try and picture what the people were doing way back when.
And we are almost up to date. One more night to record, finally!

Bienvenidos a Peru!

2009-09-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

Hola todos! It’s time for a much needed update and when better to do it than in Peru. How we got here is actually an ironic story…

Jake is studying International Business and it’s a requirement to do an internship outside of the US for 3 months. We had always been planning on doing the internship in Puerto Rico seeing that’s where he served his mission. On a whim last December we decided to visit Puerto Rico, mostly so I could get an idea of what it would be like for 3 months there and maybe find a place to get settled in to. We had so much fun visiting his members, playing at the beach and just hanging out together. But it was too much like the US and I was expecting a little more 3^rd world, for some odd reason I wanted to live in a very foreign country. So with a little help from Jake’s mom and a Peruvian neighbor we had an internship. Jake would be helping out at a little store that some members in Trujillo owned and in turn they would give us a place to stay and food for the 3 months. We planned on going June-Aug. But as it got closer we found out the family we were staying with would be in America for July and Aug so the plans changed to Sept-Nov. I was a little nervous on how we would pay for the whole thing but I knew it would all be taken care of. And by some miracle it was…

Jake received an email from USU about an internship in Peru…Trujillo, Peru. The same country and the exact same city we already had arrangements for. This internship would be helping small businesses start up and learn how to run it on their own. The wonderful thing about this internship is they would give us a scholarship for $3,000 dollars to go and work. Luckily Jake got the internship and the worry about finances was settled. And an added bonus about this internship was there is another couple going so I have a friend! It’s crazy how things just work out and fall into place like that. We still planned on living with the Meza family so we didn’t have to worry about finding a place to live either when we got here. Anyway, so here we are.

After an 11 hour plane ride we finally made it to our destination, well not Trujillo but Lima. A girl from our ward back in Salt Lake is from Peru and was nice enough to arrange for us to stay with her family in Lima. We got here a week before the boys had to go to work so we thought we’d spend a few days in Lima touring the city and just hanging out. Here’s a quick recap of what we did those couple of days…

This was our room in Lima. My first thought was perfect, I’m sure I’ll get through these 3 months nicely. What more could you ask for than a flat screen TV. Maybe this wasn’t as 3^rd world as I thought it would be.

Our first stop was the Lima MTC and the beautiful Lima Temple. The first picture is of the soccer field at the MTC, Peruvians love their futbol!

Those Peruvians sure do know how to party! We had so much fun the second night we were there at a birthday party. Prior to contrary belief about getting really skinny here, all Peruvians do is eat and eat and eat! The food just kept coming, we kept thinking the meal was over and they’d bring out another course. And they love cakes, and pastries, and cookies, and candy. There’s no hope for us here!

The next day we went knockoff shopping. Jake and Brad bought their Lacoste polo’s for 8 bucks, pretty darn cheap I’d say! For girl shopping there wasn’t a very wide range selection. It was almost like shopping at the little Asian stores, it all seemed pretty cheap quality to us so we just had a fun time hanging out and people watching. The streets are so crowed here! People walking everywhere and cars driving wherever they want! It’s hard to feel safe in a car when there are 3 lanes available but there are 5 lanes of cars. Just a bunch of organized chaos I guess.

The time came for us to leave our nice little abode in Lima and venture off to where we’d be living for the next 3 months of our lives. I was excited to get going and finally get settled in instead of living out of a suitcase. We took the Cruz Del Sur bus to Trujillo. It was the VIP bus so we felt pretty special. The seats reclined all the way back and that was very important seeing we’d be in the bus for 8 hours straight! We were on the top of the double-decker bus and the next time we ride I think I will be requesting the bottom. The whole time I felt like we were going to tip over!

Note…we would weave back and forth the double yellow lines and one wrong move we’d end up in the ocean. A little scary...

Here we all are still smiling after an hour…seven more to go!

Home sweet home is the house right above the red garage. When we pulled up to the house I was thinking “Are you kidding me…I thought this place was in a gated community!” However, their idea of a gated community is someone standing at the end of their street blowing a whistle all night. Oh how I missed my clean, wonderful room in Lime. It’s fine though, after a trip to the Plaza Vea (the local Wal-Martish store) and a couple hundred soles later it finally felt like home.

Luckily we have hot water, the only downside is the only hot water there is is in the shower...but I'll take it!

Our food storage, we keep everything that's open in the fridge. Jake claims if you don't you will get bugs. I'm not too sure about his logic but he's the boss.

I bought that picture of Christ at a little shop in Lima; I thought it fit nicely in the kitchen.

Our beds are two twin beds pushed together...the funny thing is we end up just sleeping on one anyway.

And there’s our home. Not as nice as the US but it’ll do. This makes me grateful for carpet! I can’t wait 'til I get home and I can just rub my feet on the carpet. I think everything is tile here because it gets so dusty and dirty! We have to sweep once a day and everyday there is a huge pile of dust, also we don’t have a dishwasher, which is a shame cause if you don’t wash your dishes right after you do them then you will get all sorts of creepy crawlers. If this trip teaches me nothing else it for sure will teach me to be clean!

There is more to the post but I am way too tired to be staying up waiting for all the pictures to post. Why does is take FOREVER? If anybody knows a good way to upload pictures let me know! Otherwise I will be working on this for quite sometime. Miss and love you all!

The Windy City!!!

2009-06-13T19:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple of weeks since I've updated and I already feel like a slacker! We were able to fly out to Chicago for Jake's cousin Kylee's wedding. I had never been to Chicago let alone really a big city besides LA and Jake's family had talked it up big time so I had some great expectations. From the second we got there to the second we left we were busy nonstop, it was exhausting. All in all the trip was wonderful but there is so much I still didn't see so we have an excuse to go back! We love vacations! Sorry there are a lot of pictures but I'm not much of a writer...

We went to a White Sox game in the pouring rain! We had seats right behind homeplate so it was hard to catch any baseballs there but some guy a few sections over did get hit right smack dab in the nose, so I guess were we were was a blessing. Oh and the White Sox won.

Jake and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary on June 5 which happened to be the same day as the wedding. Sadly there were too many people at the sealing so we were uninvited, but what can ya do? I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. I guess it's true what they say, "Time flies when you're having fun!" I love you Jake!

Here is the beautiful bride and her husband! The wedding dinner and reception were so fun! They had three different stations of food at the dinner and you bet I went to each one. Then at the reception they had three different dessert stations and again I attended all three. It really was a huge party. Everyone was dancing, eating and talking all night. I bet it went on for 4 hours or more. One fun part was the photo booth they had. We took our turn at it and probably were the only ones there who didn't look normal in their photos. But I think the not looking normal is more common for us anyway.

The wedding was at the Cuneo Mansion. Maybe some of you have seen this mansion on the popular movie My Best Friends Wedding. This was the place where they were having their wedding and Julia Roberts kissed the groom in the gazebo. We looked everywhere for that gazebo and finally asked where it was and they had taken it down for some reason. This was the only picture I have of the mansion cause they wouldn't let us take pictures inside. The grounds were gorgeous! What would it be like to live in a mansion? I may never know.

The night we arrived in Chicago we found out that they had not ordered any flowers yet. For some reason they thought that they would be able to go pick them up the day before and Jake's mom would be able to put them together when she got there. This turned out to be a huge project! We had to go into the city try and find any and every white flower we could. I honestly didn't know how this was going to turn out because there were so many different kinds I was hoping we'd find a way to put it all together. It took a lot of trial and error but it ended up looking beautiful in the end. Maybe I'll become a florist. Me and Jake joked that it was funny we paid to fly over and decorate the wedding. Ha, but I was glad to be there to help!

While there we met the beautiful Hillary Clinton aka Grandma Eyre :)

Jake's little brother Nick is leaving on his mission to Brazil in September and it was fun to have him along on the trip. We will be gone when he leaves on his mission so we are pretty bummed about that but we wish him well!

Mary Poppins is a must see! I loved it!

Jake and I were able to get away for a day and go to Six Flags! I had never been there before and there were some pretty intense rides. I felt like I was a teenager again it was great! That pretty well sums up our trip. Here's a little trivia for you....Why is Chicago called the Windy City?

My very own Jonas Brother

2009-05-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

Jo or Jake...? Take your pick!

As of late...

2009-05-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

Recently we have moved from our lovely apartment in Salt Lake to Jake's mom's house in Kamas. It's been great being around the fam more and not having to pay rent! We are living there for just a short time because Jake has an internship in Peru starting the end of August, good way to save a buck! Jake's little sister has been a joy to be around and there is never a dull moment with her. We recently enjoyed watching American Idol together and she even threw an American Idol finale party. We love Kris for sure!

A cake in the face, perfect CONGRATS! Way to go Kris!

Finally!

2009-05-28T19:28:00.000-07:00

I've finally decided to start blogging, it's the thing to do these days I guess. Hopefully I'll keep it up and you all can see what we are doing with our busy lives!