Disney's MGM

Our next adventure was to go to MGM Grand, inside Disneyworld. I'd never been to Disneyworld, but now I know the difference between Disneyworld and Disneyland. Disneyworld has like, 8 theme parks (including 2 water parks) inside their "world", and everything is together, but apart, and it must be on 10 miles of land. MGM kind of focuses on movies and how they're made and stuff...but with lots of rides. Enough trying to explain. Here's some pictures.

I don't know what's up with this awkward pose.Here's Allie in a gift shop...think she likes the Minnie dolls?I got called out of the audience to be an "extra" in Indiana Jones, this was like a faux "audition". It was pretty fun, they dressed us up later like Arabs and anyway, silly fun.Samuel in New York City. (It's just a backdrop.) Cool though, huh?

Mickey was so nice to feed Maddux his bottle, the boys were so tired,they couldn't stay awake. Malakai is already asleep in the back seat. So cute...Oh yeah, thanks to a timeshare promo, we got our Disneyworld tickets free, along with 4 nights in a nice condo. (We didn't buy into it, as tempting as they make it sound.) Kimmy, Damon, and Jonny stayed there too. Damon wanted to go swimming, but it was too late, so we took a big bubble bath in our big jacuzzi. This one was more....clover shaped. We were having too much fun.

Orlando

After all the excitment in St. George, the whole family headed to Jacksonville, Florida, where my sister Krystal lives. It was spring break for Eric, Jonny, and Kimmy, so we had a whole week. As part of our trip we headed to Orlando, and on the way we stopped to visit my mom's Uncle Harry and Aunt Alice. Actually, it was my first time meeting them. They were so sweet. Both my mom's parents have passed away, but Harry and Alice treated us like their own, taking all 15 of us out to lunch.

We had them take a picture of our entire family, all together at last. 2 parents, 6 kids, 3 boys married into the family, 4 grandkids, and 2 on the way. My camera has a delay, and it caused heads to get cut off. Sorry, this is the only shot we got.
That night we left Jonny and Kimmy to baby-sit the 4 kiddies and we went to the Orlando temple to do an endowment session. It's pretty neat to be in the temple with your family, and it was even cooler because we were the only people in the session, except for one other guy. It was only the second time through for Eric, and it was a wonderful experience. Eric's mission call came while we were in the temple (in Utah) and our Stake President faxed it to the hotel, where Eric read it to us. (We had grandparents and cousins on two phones, listening in, Kimberlee is there holding two phones up.)He got called to the California San Diego mission, Spanish speaking. Estamos bien animados!! Jeff, Wayne, Samuel, and I all served Spanish speaking, and we are excited for Eric to learn Espanol. My dad knows Japanese...but has no one to speak it to.
My nephew Damon took this picture of us (he went crazy with my camera!) but some turned out pretty cute, again though, head cutting off problem! Me and Jonny are happy for Eric. He's leaving April 25th!!

Honeymoon Suite

L-R, Maddux, my mom, Samuel (sorry love, your eyes are kinda closed in this one) me, my dad and Malakai, Grandma Ruth, Grandpa Don. Back row: Kimberlee, Eric, Wayne, Tara, Jonny. We were just missing Krystal's family.


Well, I put up this great family picture so you could see my grandparents, Don and Ruth Esplin. They are my only grandparents left living, and they are the greatest grandparents ever! They still live in St. George; they are cattle ranchers, and they still go out to their ranch on the Arizona strip several days a week and round up cattle and stuff. But my grandma is also very fashionable (moreso than my mom, sorry Mom!) and takes me shopping often. She has a great eye for fabulous outfits, and cost is never a problem for her! I love it. Well, at the last minute she called me and told me she'd booked the Honeymoon Suite at Holiday Inn, for the same day we got sealed. I hadn't really thought about it, but she wanted it to be special for us. I was so touched. We weren't expecting a 5-star hotel or anything, but we were really impressed, and we loved the room, especially the heart-shaped jacuzzi! We slept in the next morning, and ate an amazing breakfast in bed. Talk about a fun surprise. You should also know that she had to work some magic to get this room...it was Spring Break in St. George, and almost every room in EVERY hotel was SOLD OUT!! Also, there were 17 weddings in the St. Geo temple alone on March 10th. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, you're the BEST!

March 10th- It was Magical

Finally home! It was a fabulous trip. March 10th was probably the best day of my life. I'll never forget it. It was so fun to see so many people and loved ones, that made it most memorable of all. So, it'll take me a week or two to tell all about it, but to start with, we got into Vegas the night before our sealing, and didn't get to St. George until 3:15 a.m.! I got about 4 hours of sleep, then went to my hair appointment. I kind of just left it up to my stylist, who is actually the younger sister of my close friend Genis. My hair turned out pretty similar to one of the pictures, I really loved it. I decided not to wear a veil, when I put on the tiara, it seemed like enough. The sealing itself was amazing, we both cried like babies. And it was a fun surprise, my little brother Eric got endowed the morning of my sealing, and so he was there at my sealing in the afternoon. My mom had told me he wouldn't be endowed in time. (He got his mission call 5 days later, more on that soon!) We took all these pictures, here's a few of my favorites:

(And...if you REALLY have a lot of time, you can check out all the pictures, tell me which ones are the best, in your opinion, before we print any out. Here's the link, password is march10.)

We had a wedding/sealing dinner after that, and we played a short slideshow, if you want to see it, click here, the username is HSB and the password is aloha. And it works better if you let it load before you push "play".

Okay, that's all for now, but I'll be back!!!!

Planning Planning

I haven't been updating lately, I've been busy making plans for our big weekend and vacation. This Friday we are flying to Las Vegas and driving to St. George. Then on Saturday, Samuel and I are getting sealed in the St. George temple (for some of you who didn't know, we eloped, here in Hawaii. Still a sore sport with the parents, they thought we must have done the deed, which we hadn't, but that probably would have happened if we waited much longer. If you want details, send me an email!) Samuel was married previously, and it requires a special clearance from the First Presidency, which we didn't have then, but obviously have now. So finally, after a year of waiting, we are going to be Together Forever, and it's going to be the best day ever. So many friends and family are going to be there, the sealing is in the afternoon, and we're having a dinner after that. I am going to wear a wedding dress, afterwards, for pictures around the temple. And that morning (thanks to my high school girlfriends and gift certificates) I am getting my hair weaved (in serious need) and done up fancy, and getting acrylic nails on of course. FUN! I just need to decide how to wear it. I'm thinking partial updo, I hope it turns out something close to these pictures.I'm really happy I get to do this planning...it's so much fun! My mom is having fun too, I think, she's had to do a lot since I'm not there to do it. And...she's needed at least this long to start to forgive me. Anyway, I hope it all goes well. I'll put some pictures up when we get back. Deb from Funny Face Photography is doing the photography, and I am just amazed by her talent, so I'm way excited about that. (Check out her blog and website, there's a link over there.)

After the sealing, my whole family is going to Florida to spend a week with Krystal, Jeff, Damon, and Allie in Jacksonville. Even the little twins are going, and it will be the first time our entire family has been together in a year and a half. Samuel hasn't even met Jeff, my brother-in-law yet. We are going to Orlando and Universal Studios too. So, I might be MIA for a week or two, but I'll be back!!! Can't wait!

My Favorite Websites

Thanks to Emily for the link to a fabulous website with darling fonts. (Check her page out here: )

I just wanted to share my favorite websites, some of them you'll obviously be familiar with, others, who knows? Let me know what other great sites I'm missing out on, kay?

http://www.google.com
Obviously this isn't a new one, I just have to say that I use it at least 5 times a day. My brain keeps coming up with so many random questions, and without fail, I can find the answers on google.

http://www.craigslist.com
If you guys have never heard of it, it's okay. I didn't hear about it til I moved to a big city (Honolulu). It's a free site where you can post ads, buy, sell, look for jobs, housing, etc. I am in LOVE with this site, here in Hawaii people are constantly buying and selling things, because they move and it's too expensive to ship things. I have bought and sold cars, baby clothes for my sister, desks, entertainment centers, chairs, beds, (pretty much our whole apartment was furnished through craigslist.) And lately, I'm going crazy looking for baby deals...I got an electric breast pump for $10! Yeah! So check out craigslist, especially if you live in a big city. If you don't, click on the city closest to you, see what's out there.

http://www.makeupalley.com
For you cosmetic junkies out there, you'll love this site. The first thing that drew me to it was there are thousands if not millions of reviews on every product on the market, from make-up to hair products to beauty tools to perfumes and lotions. Then, they have a "swap" option where people post everything they want to get rid of, and you make deals with other people to trade for stuff they don't want. You can get a lot of brand new stuff too, and save money! LOVE IT! (Watch out, don't get swaplifted! That's when someone asks you to send first, then never sends their item...it's happened to me once. Just check their feedback!)

http://www.pregnancyweekly.com
There's hundreds of pregnancy websites out there, I just love knowing how big my baby is each week, and learning about what's going ON in there! This week it told me I'm 37.5% there, my baby is about 4 inches long and has all it's little organs. And fingernails and toenails. Cute!

http://www.kraftfoods.com
Not only does it have recipes, it gives you ideas of dinner for a week and lets you print out a shopping list showing you what you need, and to help so food doesn't go bad before you use it. Thanks, Mel, for this one.

http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov
Lately I've been more concerned about what I eat- this website lets you enter in everything you eat in a day, then analyzes it: It'll tell you how you did on eating your servings from the "pyramid" and also if you got too much sodium, fat, calories, etc, for your body type. I'm having fun with it, and it's motivating me to eat more fruit and veggies. But it's hard to use if you eat out. For obvious reasons.

http://www.bigpepetravel.com
Actually, this is a new one for me, but a convert of mine gets commission when people book through this website, so I'm spreading the word! I've found that it has some even better deals than travelocity/expedia/orbitz, etc. So check it out!

My favorite websites, though, are YOUR BLOGS!!! I love love love reading them. Keep up the good work.