Bball Kings

This is my little brother, Joe. He's the coolest kid I know and my best friend next to Collin. He's going to be 12 this year and will recieve the Aronic Priesthood and enter the Temple. This is such an important time for him!!! It's crazy that he's a real human now and not just my buddy baby brother. He's a great example to me and I MISS him constantly.

Poor Joe got a bloody nose.

Mini Suns. I'm so proud.

NO. 1!

Undefeated 5th-6th grade East-West Valley State Champions.

Our dad is the coach and they got to work hard and have

a great time together.

My Mom's pretty ranunculus.

Good memories

It's been a while. We've had a pretty busy couple of weeks. I trained all week in Arlington, and had to take a bus and two trains there AND back. LONG WEEK.

Collin is getting ready to start work next Monday. He got a JOB! We feel so blessed to have been so inspired to come out here, without incomes, and now we've both gotten jobs. It worked! Faith works!!

We're getting settled in! We LOVE our ward more and more every week. We were looking at some of our photo albums while putting them away. Here are some pictures of pages from the one we made of our lay-over in Paris last summer on the way back from Africa.

Gold

Please go here and scroll down to the bottom, Dear friends:


http://www.quickscores.com/Orgs/ResultsDisplay.php?OrgDir=ahwatukeeymca&LeagueID=138830

For Valentine's Day:

I Love...

I Love Collin Smith, first of all. He's good-looking & funny; he works hard to take care of me; he loves to serve others; and he'll play games and watch movies with me all day while we're stuck in a snow storm.

I Love kitties. They are just so cute. I love that sweet pur and fuzzy face snuggling up to me. Sneek is one friend that knows all of my secrets.

I Love my Heavenly Father, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Atonement, my Savior, the Temple, and reading the scriptures every morning--first thing when I get up. It's the reason I'm graduating, I swear.

I Love going to church! Especially Relief Society! I havent been in over two weeks! I'm hoping the skies stay blue so we can go this week!!!!

I Love Grammar! Semicolons, Adjective Compliments, Gerunds & Interjections--I love them all! And I love editing anything you could give me.


I Love my dear friends who make sure I'm okay, give advice & listen to me talk forever on their voice mails!!!!!


I Love my family--Sandy Money, Alan Money & Joseph Money in Phoenix (Joe plays an important basketball game today against Wilkenson! Go Joe!!), AJ at BYU-one of my very best friends, David on his mission in Santo Domingo-I pray for him at every SINGLE prayer. I love him so much!

I Love the best inlaws ever! The Smiths! From movies and TV I always learned that you're not supposed to get along with your inlaws, but I have the sweetest, most excepting, caring, and FUN ones ever. I miss them.

I Love my cousins, Aunts, Uncles! I love my family, and anyone who marries into it.


I LOVE PLAYING BOARD GAMES! Eating! Baking! Making collages! Typing on my type-writers, and furthermore, writing letters!

I Love Nature, outdoors, the SUN, pretty flowers, and Arizona sunsets.


And.....I Love our new home. Even with all the snow, I'm really loving this place. I can't wait for warmer weather...but that means humidity and super high electricity bills, doesn't it! Oh well, I still Love it.


What do you Love??

DUN DUN DUN

Have you heard?????????????? THERE'S BEEN A HUGE BLIZZARD IN DC!!!!!!

We're surviving. :) Actually it has been pretty fun. Everything in the city has shut down because no one can get their cars out of the driveway and the metro can't run above ground.

It was pretty crazy! Last weekend, as the storm was hitting, we stopped by the grocery store for a couple of things. There was NOTHING there! The shelves were mostly barren. No milk! No Eggs! No chicken!!! No tomatoes!!!!!! The place was a madhouse. Kind of scary to think this was just a snow storm. What will "the end" be like? Don't you worry though, we had enough food and were able to get stuff from our farmer's market on Saturday.

Sunday, church was cancelled again, of course, so we had a mini church. Then we went on a big walk. The sun was out; the sky was blue; we had so much fun, but it was still FREEZING! The wind goes like 15-20 mph and cuts your face into bloody pieces. Phew.

Other than snow walks, we've been watching lost of movies and the Bachelor and LOST on hulu. We haven't seen the B this week yet, but Jake! Get rid of ALLY!!! YUCK! LOST is the greatest show ever to air on Television. Period. End of Story. That first episode last week had me SCREAMING with fear the whole time. I LOVE IT!

ALSO: I got a job! Daniel from Jouvence Aveda called me about the application I turned in a couple of weeks ago. He invited me to talk today, and apparently he liked me because I start training on Saturday! I'm kind of nervous, but really excited for free hair cuts, manicures, products, and MONEY, woo. It should be fun. ???? I hope. I don't die.

PS. Daniel is the President and is from Paris. He is awesome. So suave. So intimidating. I told him my husband served a mission in Paris and that they'll have to speak French together sometime. He laughed at that. He also laughed when I told him my hobbies were documenting, being with friends, and playing board games. Not sure if laughs are good or bad. Ha!

We're getting 10 inches or more right now. I say, BRING IT ON! BUT! Please let me go to church this Sunday! I really really miss it.

J. Edgar Hoover Would Be Proud

Collin here -
I was riding the DC metro on Friday. When I got off the train, I found that my phone was longer on me. I ran back to watch the train pull away into the abyss. I continued on to my interview with a nonprofit NGO that deals with issues in developing West Africa (which is why Nikki and I have moved to DC - to do that kind of thing). When I got home I called my phone. Willie answered. I didn't understand most of what he said, but was sure to deny his request to meet him in District Heights to "exchange for my phone." Instead, I asked him to return it to the closest metro stop station agent and that I would retrieve it from lost & found. He agreed.

Later that night I checked my phone's usage online (technology is amazing - maybe I should wiretap myself!). I called the 4 numbers he had dialed and left a message with one Kendra of the Fantasy Pleasure Parties message. This turned out to be HIS sister (not mine) who kindly called back and informed that I should not expect to see my phone again; he was not the type to give things back. Sure enough, the next day he was racking up the minutes. I forwarded my number to Nikki's phone (again, awesome technology) and started getting several calls from people who seemed confused that a white boy was answering Willie's new number. I corrected the misinformation. Then went straight to Radio Shack to get my free upgrade phone from T-Mobile (I knew there was a reason I hadn't taken advantage of that yet - 9 months late).

Now I have a new phone that has a 2 mega-pixel video/camera that, for some reason, won't send pictures messages. Do I have to get some kind of media plan!? Oh well, it looks cool.

humbled once again

Let me tell you, my prayers have been answered SO many times over the last few weeks and especially today. Heavenly Father IS aware of me and knows me and wants the best for me. Not everything works out the way I expect it to, i.e. not getting our things for 3 weeks, but it always works out the best way.
Another example, Collin was downtown tonight with no cell phone (LONG STORY) and I was SO scared he would get mugged or killed. I kept praying SO hard that he would call me, somehow--and he showed up! EVEN BETTER! I'm so grateful to have someone looking out for us on this big scary move. (I know I might seem fearless, but I actually do get SCARED!)
AND I'm so grateful for so many prayers and kindnesses from dear friends and family who are so thoroughly missed. I love you guys. Thank you.

Classy lady and Husband of

I've joined the D.A.R. Daughters of the American Revolution.
Okay, this didn't exactly come about just by moving to DC. My mom is an American Patriot through and through and has been trying to get me in for years. You have to have substantial evidence of a BLOOD relative who fought in the American Revolution, and my mom finally found Benjamin Conger, from New Jersey, through my father's line. PHEW. Mom is still working on getting herself in. So since I'm getting inducted in this weekend, and the National Headquarters and museum are here in the city, Collin and I thought we'd check it out. It was actally really amazing! These women have devoted their lives to Eduation, Historical Preservation, Patriotism, and service! I'm getting pretty excited about the Continental Congress this July. You get to dress up in formal gowns and be Fancy. Lorelai would think I'm lame, but Rory, you'd understand wouldn't you? Collin gets to be a HODAR Husbands of the D.A.R. Hehe.

Another fun day of being an American. Here's me in front of the White house. It is smaller than I thought, but it's awesome. Hi Obama daughters.

This is the awesome scary building Collin had a meeting in. U.S. Commerce.

IN EVEN BETTER NEWS: We've bought 3 colors of paint and've started painting our place!!!!! We eat, sleep and pee paint. Seriously.

Never wasting time.