Jeremy's Graduation

I haven't posted for a while, so there is another new one further down after this one!

My little brother Jeremy graduated on June 4th from Clearfield High! I am so proud of him! I am glad I was down here, so I was able to attend the graduation.

Here is all the kids, me, Ryan, and our two 'younger brothers' Jeremy and Keaton, who are both taller than us!


The brothers
Jeremy with Ryan and Ashlee

Grandpa and Jackie

Dave and Mom

and Dad

We had a barbeque after that all the family and some friends came to, it turned out good, and the food was good too! Jeremy is going on a Senior trip to California, so my mom and I are going to St. George again this weekend because Jeremy and his friends are spending the night in St.George in the condo on their way to Cali. This time hopefully we can veg by the pool more!

St. George

I'm late posting this but, A couple of weekends ago me, my mom, my brother, and my sister in law went to St. George. They picked me up from the airport and we just headed straight there. It was kind of a long drive but in the end it was worth it! I did a lot of shopping at the outlet mall which I was looking forward becausae there is no where to shop in Alsaka! I got a bunch of cute clothes! Yea! Finally! We also drove up to some of the infamous red rock mountains and did a very small hike and took some pics...it was way hot! SO, we went and chilled by the pool for the rest of the night.

Here are some pictures of the St. George temple, it is so beautiful!

Here is Ryan, Ashlee, me, and my mom

Branden really wants me to send him some pictures of myself so I had my brother take some. SO, here is one for Branden, hopefully he can just look it up online... I have a hard time printing pictures anymore!

Me & Mom

Ryan & Ashlee

And then the rest of these pictures are my poor attempt at my dream of being a photographer... but I love taking picture regardless, and St. George is a beautiful place to do it!

Happy Mothers Day Mom!

Mom, I just wanted to do a post honoring you on Monther's Day since I am not able to be there with you. I hope you like it! Here are a few pictures of you and I throughout the years, I was sad to realize that I don't have very many because you were always the one taking the pictures, but you were always there for me for everything, I mean EVERYTHING in my life!

First of all here is a picture of you, me, and Ryan on Mother's Day 1987. You were beautiful then, and you are beautiful now! I can only hope that I will age as well as you have!

Here is another one of you and the kids, minus Keaton, but this one is on Easter. I don't think I ever thanked you for all of the dresses and clothes you made me while I was younger, but I appreciate it so much, even though I may not have acted like I did at the time! Here we are in our matching dresses!

And our matching Easter vests! I hope I can be as good of a mom to my kids as you are to us!

Here we are on my graduation day, I never would have made it with out your love and support! By the way, I love your short hair here! You should cut it like this again!

And my wedding day, of course you were there for that! Dang we look good!

And most recently you flew to Alaska to be with Branden and I as we were sealed in the temple! I can't thank you enough for that, with one days notice! I am so glad you were able to be here for that and all of the important things in my life!

I love you so much! Thankyou for everything you do for me and everyone else in your life!

And once again Happy Mother's Day! I miss you, and wish I could be there to tell you in person!

Finally...

So I finally got a job at Allure day spa and hair design as a nail tech. Hopefully it will turn out to be a good job and I will make a lot of money as well as keep myself busy while Branden is gone. I have really been trying to keep myself busy doing anything I can think of... I went to the arts and crafts center on post and made a wood shelf to hang on my wall in the woodshop they have. It was way fun to use all of the different power tools and machines and I enjoyed being able to design the exact shelf I wanted and I have to say it turned out exactly the way I wanted it to! I also made some strawberry jam for the first time...it turned out perfect too! Other than that, I have been hanging out with friends some and missing Branden and counting down the days til he comes home. As of right now the time seems to be going by sooooo sloooooow. Hopefully it will start to go by faster. Branden is doing good as far as I can tell, he can't tell me much of anything but I do get to talk to him quite a bit which is good. I am planning on coming down to Utah a couple of times probably in June and December, and then I think Branden and I are going to go somewhere fun on his mid-tour leave like possibly.... Hawaii!! I think it will be in September, but I'm not sure. So anyways I have a few things to look forward to. I am also puttering away at school...I am finishing up a music class now and I am going to be taking summer and fall classes and hopefully someday I will at least get my associates degree.

Oh, I also wanted to put some pictures of my new nieces on here, they were born about a month and a half ago, they are sooo cute! I also have a nephew due in June and a niece or nephew due in November! Fun stuff! I just wish I was there to hold them!

This is Anna Marie Bingham and the next picture is Avenley Murrah.

And lastly, I know this is old news but I wanted to post some pics of the Redoubt volcano that errupted up here, kinda crazy! I did experience some ash falling on me, scary! But it really didnt effect us that much. We have had a few earthquakes that have scared me though...hopefully there is not going to be any big ones! So anyways that is the update for now!

Creepy!

This shows the ash covering the snow...we didnt get it this bad but we got some

This is the big ash cloud in the sky

I Love Modern Technology!

Since Branden left to Afghanistan I have been able to talk to him almost everyday, and sometimes twice a day! We just recently figured out that he could do skype, (which for those of you who don't know what it is...it is a website that lets you talk to anyone in the world for free as long as you both have downloaded skype. Pretty much you can talk to them through your computer to their computer and if you both have web cams you can also see each other as you are talking, it is pretty cool!) It definately makes him being gone a little easier! Here is a picture I took of Branden the other day through the web cam (sorry it is a little blurry the web cams aren't perfect). It is so nice to see his face erveryday! I miss him sooo much!

The Best and Worst Week of my Life

Branden and I got sealed in the Anchorage Alaska temple last week on March 4th. It was an amazing experience, and we are so thankful that we were able to get sealed before Branden went to Afghanistan. Also, we were lucky enough that Branden's parents and my mom were able to fly up here to go to the temple with us! We are truely blessed to have such good parents to fly up on such short notice regardless of how expensive the tickets were, they truely support us in all we do and we appreciate it so much! We were also surprised that there were so many of our friends from our ward that came to our sealing as well, thankyou everyone for coming!

Here is a picture of the Anchorage temple when we first got up here in August or September. It is fairly small, but it is gorgeous!
We didn't have much time to sight see while our parents were in town, but we did a little, here we are near Arctic Valley, a ski resort, there is a beautiful view of the whole Anchorage area.

We also drove down to Girdwood and Whittier which would have been amazing in the summer, but the whole town was closed for the winter! We even payed 12 dollars to go through a tunnel to get there, and all that was there was a ghost town! and then, on the way back there was a horrible accident and we got stuck in traffic for two hours! It still was a beautiful drive despite all of the obstacles. We ate a big meal at Golden Corral after the long drive and being stuck forever, we were all starving!

Another one of the nights we went bowling on base, it is really cheap and fun!

Here is me and my mom

Branden

Elden

and Sheri

And then on Saturday I had to do the hardest thing I have ever done, I had to say bye for a year to my best friend, my other half, my love. I am so proud of him, he is a true soldier and just has a passion to serve our country. I know it is going to be SO hard on both of us, but this is his calling in life, and I support him 100%. I just can't wait til he comes back, and we can be together again! And we can start a family!


Having family here when Branden left definately made it a lot easier. I still don't think it has set in yet that he is gone.
I didn't want to let go of him!

I love you Branden! I will miss you more than anything in the world!