Life is Crazy!

It has been forever since I've blogged! Life has been so busy with work and the bake shop ( mostly the bake shop) that I just haven't had time -sorry!
Anyway, Devan is now going into Massage Therapy. It's wonderful! He just finished Swedish Massage and Hot Stone Massage is up next! We have a massage table in our house and I love making sure he gets enough practice in!
My position at work changed -I'm no longer working with our South East Asia and India offices. Now I'm working with our offices in Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Japan! It's a lot of fun and hopefully I'll be going on a trip soon!
At church both of our callings have changed. I'm no longer Young Women President, I'm now the Ward Music Chairperson, Ward Pianist, Primary Pianist, and Ward Choir Director! It's been interesting since I'm not very good at the piano and I've never conducted a choir before. Devan is no longer 2nd Counselor in the Young Men Presidency - he is now Assistant Scout Master.
Anyway, last night I went to Temple Square and I think I got a pretty good picture of the temple (at least for taking it on my cell phone) so I thought I'd share.

Kuala Lumpur and Mumbai (Bombay)

The first part of August I got to go to Malaysia and India for work. My company has offices in those countries so I was sent to check out the offices and see how they do things there and to train the employees.

First I went to Malaysia. I stayed in the Hilton and it was super nice! Here's my room:

I didn't get to do a lot of sightseeing in Malaysia cause there just wasn't time but Jessie (she's over Distributor Services in the office there) took me to visit China Town where I bought most of my souvenirs.

It was pretty crowded! But they had a lot of cool stuff there at very cheap prices. They also had some interesting fruit they were selling that grows there in Malaysia. Some of it I had had before in Okinawa on my mission but a lot of the fruit I had never seen before. It was all yummy though! :)

I was in Malaysia on Sunday so I found an LDS church to go to. Malaysia has such a huge mix of different cultures that the services were in English (lucky for me). :) Everyone was very nice and a family from Utah (they've lived in a lot of foreign countries because of the dad's job) invited me over for lunch afterwards. Lunch was delicious and their apartment was super nice! Floor to ceiling windows in their living room! I was able to get a picture of the famous Twin Towers through their window.

Sunday night I flew to Mumbai (used to be known as Bombay). It is a very crowded place! There weren't really any lines at the airport -you basically have to push your way through to get through any of the "lines". There are so many cars on the street and horns are always honking -it reminds me of bumper cars. I didn't see many lines painted on the road -cars just drive where they can fit and they don't stop for pedestrians -it was quite scary trying to cross the street. The people in our office there were very nice -they gave me the traditional Indian welcome and put the red dot on my forehead and told me that it symbolizes the blessings of God.

I got to eat a lot of delicious food in India! I love Indian food but it was quite different from the food in Indian restaurants here -still delicious though! :) I also got to do some sightseeing with Radhika from the office there. Here's some pictures:

This one is the oldest train station in Bombay. I just thought it looked really cool. :)

Radhika took me to a place called The Great Bombay Store where I bought some cool souvenirs. This picture is a lego model of the Taj Mahal. I thought it was pretty sweet.

This is the Gateway to India which was erected way back when King George V visited Bombay.

This is a really nice hotel right by the Gateway to India. It was bombed by terrorists in 2008. They've obviously fixed it up again.

This is Radhika and me with the shoreline in the background. They call it "The Queen's Necklace". You can't see the whole shoreline but it goes around in a half circle and at night when all the lights are one it looks like a big sparkly necklace.

This is a picture of the lobby of the hotel I stayed in.  The Intercontinental -super nice!

It was a lot of fun in both countries and I'm glad I got to go. This week I just got another promotion at work so I'm no longer working with those markets. My next trip will be to either Australia, New Zealand, Korea or Japan most likely!

Eleanor's Bake Shop

So... my family just started a bakery!!!  The Grand Opening is tomorrow from 8am-8pm and the address is 9495 S 560 W Bldg. D  Sandy, UT 84070  Phone: (801) 563-7466.  I totally should have blogged about this sooner but I've been so busy blogging and facebooking for the bakery that I totally forgot about my own blog. lol.  Anyway, the food is delicious!  Come on by!  And if you come for the Grand Opening you get a free cake pop!  We're also serving lunch from 11am-2pm.  The rest of the hours we're open will be just baked goods.  Check out our blog http://eleanorsbakeshop.blogspot.com/ and we're on facebook too!  Just look up Eleanor's Bake Shop.

These are our cake pops!  They are delicious!  In fact, I've never met anyone who has tried them and doesn't like them!  Come get a free one on Saturday.

This is the Ham & Swiss Arepa (one of our lunch menu items).  It's amazing!  You have to try it!

My New Haircut

We just took a family picture but shortly afterwards I decided to chop my hair off so here's another family picture with my new look!  I really like my new 'do.  Especially since it's nice and cool for the summer time.  What do you (the few readers that I might actually have) think?

Our New Family Picture

Memorial Day Weekend in Colorado

This past weekend Devan and I were able to fly out to Denver to visit his sister Jalayne, her husband Doug and their cute litte daughter Hailey.  We had so much fun! 

We got to visit Hammond's Candies -it was fun to be able to watch them make the candy and then we spent way too much in the store.  But it sure was delicious!  Here's some pictures (those of you who read Doug & Jalayne's blog may see some of the same pictures -sorry!).

We also went to see the Denver Botanic Gardens.  I thought it was awesome!  They had so many different types of gardens -my favorite was the Japanese garden because it's just so peaceful.  It was perfect weather to walk around the gardens too.  We also ended up with a good picture of Devan and me and it's going to be our new family picture.  I'm not going to post it right now because I don't have the edited file (there were some people in the background) on this computer so I'll have to post it later.  Anyway, here's some pictures:

What we like to call a "firework flower".

What a cute little family!

Isn't he cute!  The background looks nice too. :)

Now he's just being a dork. lol

:)

We also found out that Denver has a ton of gluten free restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores with GF food, etc...  We went to this Italian restaurant called Abrusci's and they had almost everything gluten free.  I ordered Baked Ravioli (GF), Devan ordered Linguini with Roasted Tomatoes (GF so he could share with me) and Jalayne ordered Chicken Parmesan (also GF).  They were all delicious!  I also ordered some GF bread for a starter that came out with the regular complimentary bread.  It was delicious!

On Monday before flying home we went to a family BBQ for Memorial Day and we played Mad Gab. :)  I love that game!  My team won of course. :)

Anyway, we had tons of fun!  Thanks Doug, Jalayne, and Hailey for letting us come visit!

Mother's Day FHE

We had an awesome Mother's Day yesterday with lots of delicious food made by the men (Dad, Josh, and Devan). We started this new thing to help prepare Jamie and Ferrin (and hopefully Jessica) for missions. Once a month we pick a country and have food from that country for dinner and then someone gives a lesson using Preach my Gospel. We figure that will help with spiritual preparation and it will hopefully help them be less picky when it comes to food. Jamie and Ferrin are our two pickiest eaters.

Anyway, Sunday was German day. Dad made German Hot Potato Salad and Bratwursts. Josh made something with cabbage (I don't know what it was called but it was pretty darn good). Devan made Apple Streusel (we got the recipe from Sharon Schwartz so it was authentic). Everything was delicious!! Ferrin didn't like the cabbage but he did try it so that was a big step. lol

Daniel taught the lesson on Faith from chapter 6 of Preach my Gospel -Christlike Attributes. We had a good discussion on what faith is and how if we really have faith we are led to action -repentance, obedience, and diligent service. There is an attribute activity at the end of the chapter and we did the section on faith to see how strong our faith was. Daniel challenged us to complete the whole attribute activity later and find our weakest Christlike attribute. He then challenged us to read the Book of Mormon and look for things that pertain to our weakest attribute and mark those scriptures.

Laura will be teaching the lesson next month but I'm not sure what country we're doing. I think we're going to put the names of a bunch of countries in a bowl and draw one out to decide.

Paintballing

Saturday we got a big group together and went paintballing in Morgan, Utah. We had 15 of us there: Mom, me, Devan, Laura, Daniel, Jamie, Ferrin, Jessica, my cousin Brock, two of Daniel's roommates, Marc (a friend from my work), and three of Devan's brothers. We went for Daniel's birthday. For those of you who know that Daniel's birthday is in February you may be wondering why we did this in May. We did celebrate Daniel's birthday on time but Devan and I wanted to take him paintballing for his birthday present and it didn't happen til now. It would have been a little cold to do it outside in February.

Anyway, we had a blast! It was an outdoor course and there was another group there so they mixed us up and split us into two teams. We played quite a few games and some of us ended up with some pretty nasty welts. Most of us didn't get any but Laura, who was only there for 30 minutes (the rest of us were there for 2 hours) got 3 welts!

I'll just tell one quick story that I remember from our paintballing. The last game we played was a form of Capture the Flag. Both teams started off at different forts and there was another fort in the middle with a flag in it. The object was to get to the tower, grab the flag and bring the flag to the opposing team's fort within 15 minutes. If you get shot then you're out so you have to be careful. I was at the top of my team's fort so I had a good view of pretty much everything. The other team was winning -they were able to shoot quite a few of our guys and they were getting closer to the fort with the flag. I was able to shoot some of the opposing team's guys from my tower but our men were dying quickly. We probably had about 4 guys left on our team when I ran out of ammo. We still had about 5 minutes left before the time was up and I was the only one in the tower so I just kept shooting my gun anyway hoping that the noise would hold them off for a while. Well, one of the guys on the other team was able to get to the flag and he was making his way closer to our fort/tower. I kept shooting but when there was about 5 seconds left he made a break for our fort and reached it at the last possible second and we lost. :( Afterwards people were asking how I could have possibly missed when he was coming straight for me. lol

Anyway, like I said, it was a lot of fun and I definitely wouldn't mind going again. :)

Three Years!!!

                      

Monday is our anniversary -we will have been married for three whole years!  It's crazy to think about.  Sometimes it seems like we've been married forever and other times it feels like its gone by so fast and we've barely been married at all. 

I do love being married though.  I've decided to celebrate by posting the top ten things I love about being married to Devan (in no particular order):

1. I love cooking for someone who will eat and enjoy (or at least pretend to enjoy) everything that I make.
2. I love having someone to help with the dishes.
3. I love that I never have to clean the bathroom (that's Devan's job). :)
4. I love having someone I can talk to about absolutely anything.
5. I love being able to get a nice big hug when I'm upset about something.
6. I love my in-laws!  I now have two super-awesome families!
7. I love having someone to baby me when I'm sick (my mom just quarantined us -no fun at all).
8. I love being grown up and figuring things out with just the two of us (bills and fun stuff like that). :)
9. I love not having to say goodbye to Devan at night.  I can fall asleep and he can still be there (unless he's off playing soldier).
10. I love having someone who cares as much about me as I care about him.

I love you Devan!  You are the best husband ever!  Thanks for making me such a lucky woman!

P.S.  As I was reading the top ten that I chose I realized that my list had changed quite drastically from what it would have been if I wrote it right after I got married.  There's only a few things that would have made both lists.  I love different things about my marriage now but I still love it!

It's been quite a while since I posted.  Sorry!  Life has been busy!  I got a promotion at work.  I started this Monday so today I'm finishing my first week on the new job.  I am the International Coordinator for South East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia) & India.  Before I was training the customer service department.  My new position is interesting.  I'm hoping that it will get better as I get used to it and understand what is expected of me.  I really miss training though.  : (  Oh well.

Devan has been at Camp Williams for the past two weeks at Warrior Leadership Course with the Army National Guard.  He has been learning all sorts of leadership skills and he's had a really good time with it.  The pay is nice too. : )   

Interesting things have been happening in the family as well.  My brother who was engaged is no longer engaged thanks to her.  I won't say much about that one though cause I'll just get angry.  And my sister who has always insisted that she would never go on a mission is now planning on going.  She is super excited about it and is going to get the papers started.  She doesn't turn 21 until November so she has a little bit of time.  It'll go fast though.  I'm super excited for her!!!  A mission is the best thing ever!  Other than marriage and having kids (I wouldn't know about that one though, I just assume it's pretty great). 

Anyway, that's my life right now. : )

Happy New Year!

I know for a lot of people, 2009 is a year they wouldn't mind forgetting, but for me it was pretty darn good. Last January Devan and I were living in an apartment in Taylorsville. Devan was going to school at SLCC and working at the Driver License Division and I was working at 4Life as a phone rep. We were both teaching the 7-8 year olds in Primary.

Nothing really changed until March. In March I applied for a promotion to Distributor Services Trainer and I got it! That was a really good move for me, I love it! Also (I'm not sure if it was February or March) Devan and I started looking for a house.

In May I was called to be YW Camp Director and shortly thereafter we found the house we wanted. We had a great realtor and a great lender so the process of buying a house went really quickly once we found the one we liked. We actually ended up moving before Girl's Camp but we stayed in our old ward until camp was over. We moved into our new house the middle of July and camp was the first week of August.

In our new ward I was hoping for a little bit more of a low-key calling. At that point I didn't want to plan anything big, something like teaching or playing the piano was what I wanted and I actually got it. In September I was called to be the Laurel Advisor and Devan got the more challenging calling- 1st Counselor in the YM Presidency!

Devan's calling has been challenging with school and work happening at the same time, but it's been a good experience for him. I enjoyed my calling while it lasted, but it didn't last long. In December I was released and called to be the YW President (I wrote about it in a previous post)!

2009 has been a year of many challenges but they have all been good. I am very happy with the direction our lives are going and I can't wait to see what the new year has in store for us!

Happy New Year everyone!