Freezing cold raining first day of Summer.

Today is a blustery day. A windy cold chilly blustery rainy day. And the crazy thing is that it is my first official day of summer. SUMMER!

Here is a trip to the Washington DC temple, I took a couple of weeks ago. The green is so beautiful and amazing here. But the weather just doesn't make up its mind!!

Me so happy to be there, looking pretty goofy.

I liked that red tree behind me.

I whipped up these egg whites for my homemade blueberry waffles!

(I must admit I used an electric mixer though. Too hard to do it otherwise.)

Delish! And Ete and Sarah Ahping came to stay again. We feel so fortunate to get to see them so often. This weekend we get to go to Charlottesville in Virginia to visit the Nesbits, and then we're hoping to get to Pitman at the end of May for Memorial day! We love visiting family. We love visiting anyone! And we love anyone visiting us!!! Seriously, try it. We'll make you delicious meals, and give you massages. I mean, Sarah gives us massages every time.

Blueberry waffles and Deuteronomy. Great morning.

There's my guy. Ignore the DI boxes in the back, yikes!!!

Mom on May 9th

Today at church they gave roses to all the women for Mother's Day. I felt silly getting something because I'm not a mother. But I suppose I will be one day. They say being a Mother is the most important thing a person can do. I hope that someday I can come close to being the kind of mother my mom was and is. She continues to give of herself until it seems there is nothing left and then give some more. Thanks mama. I love you. You're my inspiration.

We were on a 4 way call today with Elder David Money in the Dominican Republic, Mom Dad and Joe in Phoenix, Us in DC, and AJ in Provo. It was a little hectic, but pure happiness. I love them.

I never win nothin

12:25am and I can't sleep, though Collin is sleeping like a sweet baby (and taking up the whole bed--love him!!) I looked up my mom's house on google earth on his phone and cried. Man, I've never been away this long before, and there aren't plans to get to Arizona till November!!!

Oh, but November, GLORIOUS November! No one has a clue how much joy the thought of that month brings to me. (not just that we'll be in AZ, believe me.)
I'll enter the temple with my darling sexy husband on our 2nd anniversary. And by then I believe many things will be right with my world again.
I go to the doctors on Wednesday to find out what a new and scary little bump on my body is. I hope it is nothing, as I'm told it will be.
We get to talk to Elder Money on Sunday!! His latest email was so touching; I'm proud of him!!
The atonement is real. I wish everyone understood it. It brings happiness! Peace.

Lastly, in this late-night blog, I will tell you (whomever is out there) of my love for the Ensign. It is so good!!! If you don't read it, start! It is modern day scripture and today gave me comfort when faced with a difficult decision.
I love my husband.
AJ went on a few dates with a cute girl and it makes me giddy beyond belief. My Morgan is totally in love. I think I can go to sleep now.

Az will be 98 this week!!!!! While you might be wincing, remember I'm in disgusting humidity where I'm drenched from sweat and it doesn't dry in 80 degree weather!! I envy Provo people right now.

This is 11-y-old Joseph Money on Gchat. Best human ever.

Joseph: hi

6:42 PM :)

:-|

nikki

hello

nicole

money

6:43 PM smith

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just me right now. Me and My Maudlin Career.

I am so sleepy.

Healthy muffins are much more gross then unhealthy muffins.

It's so windy and lovely outside.

I really liked Coco Before Chanel. Audry Tautou is incredible.

I went shopping with my friend and her 2 little boys today, and now I'm even MORE terrified of having children someday.

I miss my husband.

I miss Joseph.

Elder Money is doing awesome in Los Angeles, Dominican Republic.

I pray for friends and family going through hard times right now.

Sometimes I sit and listen and watch and feel all at once.

Out here in Rockville, MD, it never feels like what it looks like.

I love pineapple. Fresh pineapple.

Be... something something

I love Thursdays because we get a new shipment of products into the store. I love putting away brand new Aveda products. They are so clean, and beautiful and pretty smelling and the plastic is so smoooooooth.

I want to get all of these things. And I want to get a manicure, pedicure, massage, and my hair done. I'm finally a girl. But alas, I'm supposed to wait a month more. I bet old Daniel is a softy and let's me early.

This post just isn't getting formatted the way I want it to. Pretend it is symmetrical.

This is MOVIES!

Over the last year, Nikki and I have been all about the LIBRARY! The Provo Public Library is the beautiful, restored Brigham Young Academy, the quaint precursor to what is now the sprawling BYU campus. It houses loads of treasures: music, magazines, awesome old VHS tapes (we have a great old video-cassette player), DVDs, and books. At some point it would be great to talk about the great reads found at libraries, but for now we are going to discuss the world of classic American cinema!

I have long been a fan of black-white-movies. The idea that people (even my own mother!) lived in a world sapped of color yet vibrant in character and detail captured my attention as a little boy. Watching Katharine Hepburn lovingly tease Cary Grant while tagging around a leopard enthralled me. What was love if not a raucous game of tag? And to my childhood mind, there was nothing more fun then tag, thus love! I fell in love with the movies, the wonderful films of an era when love was the fulfillment of hopes or the remains of dashed dreams, manifesting itself as jealousy, adoration, or bumbling idiocy. In life, like the movies, I am jealous, adoring and a bumbling idiot. Nikki I love you and love sharing this world of make believe.

Norma Shearer transcended type in her best roles. Some cinematographers found her difficult to photograph on film because she was not considered a beauty of the times. They saw her asymmetrical face as a problem to correct and made popular the notion that there was a "good side." Because of this she lost parts to other actresses. However, her lure as a strong woman with an unparalleled gift for acting meant that if she were replaced, certain directors would follow her, leaving the film.

In George Cukor's pitch-perfect satire The Women, Norma plays the woman at the center of a barnyard of bevies who let their need to gossip supersede their bonds of friendship. Most of the surrounding characters are stereotypes, albeit very funny takes on the established ones. (With the exception of Joan Crawford whose ugliness seeps out like a poison, creating the perfect match for Norma's realism.) Anyway, I am smitten by her multi-demontionality, equal parts independent modern woman, hopeful, vulnerable, unsure, and all-too certain. Sadly, this is the only film of hers I have seen. Anybody have another?

Going to see Atomic Square near the Zoo

The Library
Music Area
Game room
Woods all around our house


Ahping Family
MoneySmiths


Collin tried to cut my arms off so he could eat the cake all by himself.
My favorite humans besides CS
Delicious feast on Sunday afternoon

Cupcakes by Me.

I love to bake. I REALLY love to bake. I feel like I'm pretty good at baking most basic things, but cupcakes are my baking nemesis. When I married Collin, we got tons of cute cupcake tins and a cupcake recipe book etc. Every time we baked cupcakes, whether from scratch or by box, they always were ruined!!! It's harder to bake in the high altitude of Provo + our oven was from the 70s, and a girl can only take so much so much heartbreak. I swore cupcakes off, FOREVER.

On Friday, I remembered cupcakes, that we now live at a normal altitude, and we have an excellent gas stove. I thought I'd give cupcakes another try in my life.

I whipped up a yellow cake recipe. The batter was SO GOOD! Kind of pretty, too.

The cupcakes were poured.

They still burned around the edges, but they were pretty good. I need to keep playing around with them to perfect. I used some of Collin's pink lemonade frosting. Yum.

I went to heat it up in the microwave, and cooked it a little too long...oops.

That night I met Collin in the pink snow. This week has been such a busy one, and it was wonderful Love to see his face.

So pretty. So handsome. I'm so in love with Collin, it's crazy.