...been a bit.

It has been a bit.

Sorry about that.

What updates I can give since June?

Let us see...

July

I was actually home for the 4th of July!!!

If you are not aware, Independence Day is nearly bigger than Christmas at the House of Nuts.

and, for the first time since 2008, or thereabouts, I was home.

Usually I am traveling the world. 

This year I came home early.

We camped out near the BYU Broadcasting building and watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks with the fam.

It was marvelous.  Bug and I got to spend some quality teasing time together.

At the end of the month my baby sister turned 16.

We threw her a movie themed birthday party.

The Hulk pounded her down.

That was also quite enjoyable.

August

We went to Colorado to visit family and while there I had my first real manicure pedicure.
See?  I can't even get the name right!

The Padre played his awesome window percussion while we were there.

I got a new roommate!

My good cousin who will be called Hunter...because she is.

Hunter and I enjoy many things.

Including playing with the exercise ball.

Here is Hunter:

Here is Aliswan:

We also went to IKEA and got new desks.

I always find it strange that you have to trash your apartment in order to make it look awesome.

In other news, I still love Rosie.

More than just anything right now.

Hunter, Bug, Stephie, Deruda and I also attempted the opening of our first coconut.

Here is the coconut:

Now it is open...notice the hammer.

Yes...it was absolutely necessary.

Nice eh?

Unfortunately we found out that we did it wrong.

FYI read the directions on how to open a coconut before taking a nail and hammer to it.

There is video of us drinking from and breaking open the coconut but it is long and I am pretty sure you wouldn't watch the entire thing.

Oh!!!

We also took Deruda down to SUU after a tearful goodbye dinner in which the Cita had to stand on a chair in order to be taller than Deruda.

September

September started with me deciding to add another program onto my masters degree.

Yep, the day before school started I decided to do the Museum Certificate program in conjunction with my MA in Archaeology.

It adds another year onto my remaining year before graduation...a.k.a. It will be 1.5 to 2 years before I leave good old BYU.

Oh well.

I am apparently certifiable.

This month my roommate Hunter got to go to the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead.

Stephie and I were so happy that we got to be there with her!

Also in other apartment adventures with Hunter, I walked out of our front door to find this last week:

Are you looking at this creepiness and thinking to yourself,

is that a red hourglass on that 

creepy, 

creepy, 

creepy 

spider?

Let's get a little closer shall we?

Yep, it is.

For your information, Black Widow Spiders are faster than you think.

When I finally got up the guts to smash the atrocity with my foot I missed.

Yep, missed.

It quickly avoided my initial attempt.

Do not fear.

It lost the second round. 

Ugh.

I hate Black Widows.

And FINALLY,

this is how the month of September ended.

I turned 25.

On that same day I worked my first shift as an ordinance worker in the Provo Temple.

I work a super early shift but it is the perfect way to start my day.

Now I work once a week for a few hours and it is the light of my week.

October

Okay, really only 1 thing because the month JUST started.

This weekend was the most amazing weekend.

It was general conference and I was so overwhelmed and edified.

I loved it all and will talk about it a little more a little later.

This post is long enough.

Between sessions today we drove up to Bridal Veil Falls and gathered leaves.

Family traditions and all that.

Here are the final pics.

The falls themselves:

The goofy girls:

Bug and Aliswan.

Bug, Hunter, and Aliswan.

Dad taking Rosie across the water to the big rock.

I think it is a dude thing...Rosie is not a dude, she was terrified...probably because he almost fell into the water at one point.

Hiking up towards the top of the lower fall.

Hunter, Stephie, and Bug at the base of the upper fall.

Aliswan, Stephie, and Bug showing off our leaves.

My 2 favorite shots of Hunter.

She makes me happy.

Well folks, there is the longest update EVER.

Happy Sunday!

♥ ♥ ♥

Another Milestone...

Wow, it's been kind of a big week for me.

I went through the temple on Saturday and this morning I finished the Book of Mormon.

...again.

I always find it amazing how one book (and a pretty small one at that) can be so familiar and yet I learn so much every time I read it.

I also decided that Mormon and Moroni have to be the coolest dudes ever.

Mormon, because he was a historian as well as a prophet.

Moroni, because he was so strong in the face of some pretty depressing things.

Like his entire people being wiped out because of their exceeding wickedness.

I love reading their words, their testimonies, and how God was with them throughout their trials.

I LOVE this book!!!

So, tomorrow I start again.

And I know I will learn even more as I go.

♥ ♥ ♥

In other news, I started listening to conference talks while doing my daily yoga practice.

I found it to be incredibly relaxing, calming, and enlightening.

I try to focus on breathing, clearing my mind and such while doing my yoga.

I think that because of that I was able to focus more and hear better the words of the talks.

I really enjoyed it and definitely recommend it.

Yesterday I listened to the talks associated with this link on the lds.org website.

Super cool website by the way.

Have a marvelous day!

♥ ♥ ♥

I love to see the temple...

When I was in primary as a young girl I had 2 favorite songs:
When I Am Baptized and I Love to See the Temple.


I remember singing a solo to When I am Baptized in the primary program at church when I was 6 or 7 years old and yearning for the day when I would be baptized.

The lyrics are as follows:
I like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain
And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again.
I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.
I want to be the best I can and live with God again.


I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away,
And I can be forgiven and improve myself each day.
I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.
I want to be the best I can and live with God again.


For some reason the words of the song really touched my little heart and I couldn't wait until I was "...as clean as earth right after rain."

When I was 8 years old and was FINALLY baptized (I felt like I had waited FOREVER), I remember being so happy and while I was changing into my white dress hearing those lyrics in my mind.

I was clean, and though I didn't completely understand what that meant, I felt the spirit and was an unbelievably happy little girl.

The two songs, I Love to See the Temple and When I am Baptized, always seemed to belong together in my little girl mind.

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure why.
It's not like we sang them together, and they are several pages away from each other in the songbook.

Still, those two have always seemed to belong together for me.

The lyrics for I Love to See the Temple are as follows:
I love to see the temple.  I'm going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit, To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God, A place of love and beauty.
I'll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.


I love to see the temple. I'll go inside someday.
I'll cov'nant with my Father; I'll promise to obey.
For the temple is a holy place Where we are sealed together.
As a child of God, I've learned this truth:
A family is forever.

Today those lyrics changed for me and I sang them in my mind as I left the temple today.

I love to see the temple. I went in there today.
I felt the holy spirit, I listened and I prayed
For the temple is a house of God, A place of love and beauty.
I prepared myself while I was young;
This is my sacred duty.

I love to see the temple. I went in there today.
I covenanted with my Father; I promised to obey.
For the temple is a holy place Where we are sealed together.
As a child of God, I've leaned this truth:
A family is forever.

Deruda had to work but Stephie, Bug, and Juanita all came to be with me for my special day.

I can't tell you how wonderful the temple is.
I loved it so much.
I felt the love of my Heavenly Father so strongly there and that feeling has not diminished since I left.

I am grateful for this blessing in my life.

I am also, almost more so, grateful for the example and support of my parents and family.

As I learned eternal truths in the temple I found that I recognized so much of what was happening there.
This happened because my parents had been teaching them to me my entire life.

I didn't realize, and still don't completely understand, how indebted I am to them.

The words of those songs are true:

We can live with God again, and our families are forever.

I am so grateful.

♥ ♥ ♥

Surprises and the joys of jet lag

Well I decided to pull a surprise...and it has been my best one so far.

Last Monday my professor had a family emergency back in the States while we were in Turkey.

Initially, because we thought things were ok, we decided to stay for the remaining 3.5 weeks of our trip.

By Tuesday evening she decided her family needed her and we all decided to come home a little early.

I had already told my family on Monday that we had decided to stay so I decided not to tell them we had changed our mind to come home and I would surprise them.

So we drove for 2 days, stopping at Iznik, and taking the ferry back to Istanbul.

It was a bit cold and super windy that day - hence the kaffia.

We left Friday morning for the airport, flew to New York City and then flew back home to SLC.

16 hours on a plane baby.

One of my best friends Laurie picked me up at the airport at 11pm and took me home to Provo.

On the way back we discussed how we were going to surprise my mom.

Laurie and called Stephie and said she needed to drop something off (so Steph had no idea I was coming).

Steph informed Laurie that my mom was asleep on the living room floor so we decided to sneak in and wake her up.

When Steph saw me she fell on the floor.

When I woke up my mom (very nicely of course) it took her a second to register my face and realize she wasn't dreaming.

It was kind of cool because you could see her pupils widen and then shrink.

When she realized it was me she gasped and we had some fun.

My baby sister Bug was the funniest though because she woke, saw my face, and didn't think I was real so she reached out and grabbed my face.  She said hi and then fell asleep again.

A minute or two later she shot up and asked me why I was in the U.S. because I was in Turkey.

It was funny.

My dad was similar, he grabbed me to make sure I was real and then asked if he was dreaming.

It was a good surprise.

So I am home now, 3 weeks early, and super, super jet lagged.

I am not allowing myself to sleep during the day and my body is refusing to sleep at night.

Also I am having a lot of nausea and headaches which is no fun.

Oh well, each day gets better and in a few more, hopefully, my internal alarm will have reset.

Yay for surprises!

Glorious Ephesus and ashtray theaters

Yesterday was very long, hot, and wonderful.

We started the day going to one of the wonders of the ancient world:

The Artemision.

Other than foundations and a few ducks there is not much left of it.

Which is unfortunate because it would have been absolutely unbelievable.

Here is Bruce ticking of the ducks.

They hissed at him and then turned their backs and ignored him.

After that we went to the theater at Ephesus.

This theater is theorized to be the closest in size to the Great Theater in Apamea, Syria that I wored on 2 years ago.

It was pretty fantastic and I had a lot of fun surveying this theater.

The site of Ephesus is MASSIVE.

We went to the Church of St. Mary there as well.

Bruce liked the walk-in, dunk, and walk-out baptismal font.

The famed Library of Celsus is also on this site.

Seriously folks, I am seeing just about every classical piece I have ever seen in my textbooks on this trip.

That also includes Hadrian's Temple at Ephesus.

I include it here because it was on my Roman Archaeology midterm.

Basically I am letting Cyndy know that I still remember it.

Finally the famous Nike from Ephesus.

We did a little shopping as we were leaving.

Bruce bought me a miniature theater.

In an effort to avoid sentimentality he reminded me that I could use if for an ashtray...if I ever picked up smoking. 

Not likely.

Other than that episode, Bruce wasn't to entertained by our shopping so he endeavored to entertain himself.

By trying on hats.

Women's hats.

It was a good day overall.

Today we are heading to Iznik to see the theater there as well as see where the famed Iznik tiles were made.

More shopping may be in order here.

:)

The Pergamum Acropolis

This morning we went visited the Pergamum acropolis.

You have to take a tram to the top of the hill.

Which, in my opinion, is so much sweeter than the hike because you get an aerial view of all the ruins on your way to the top.

Awesome.

Here are Bruce and Cyndy on our way up.

While the theater wasn't super groundbreaking for my research, the view was unbelievable.

This theater is a bit odd because of its placement and...well...its slope. 

No, a slope like that on a theater is not normal.

My legs got quite the workout hiking up and down that thing a few times.

And yes, I did, from top to bottom and to the top again.

These are some of the ruins of the acropolis.

Really neat site.

We had some fun and then drove to Ephesus.

More to come.

Cocoa Puffs and Pergamum

This morning we left Assos.

Now, the following pics were not from this morning (obviously) but they were from dinner the other night at our hotel.

Forgive the poor quality, they were taken from my ipod.

It was absolutely beautiful there.  

I want to go back someday.

I also seem to post random things of what I eat.

This was breakfast this morning.

I had 2 helpings of the cocoa cereal.

What can I say?  

I love cereal - especially if it is chocolate.

We left Assos this morning and headed for Pergamum.

Pergamum is an absolutely amazing site.

So much has come from this site and so much is left.

The theater we went to today wasn't all that exciting for me but it does help round out my data set.

And really what is more important in my life right now than a rounded out data set?

I can't think of anything.

Except maybe cocoa puff cereal.

;)

Tomorrow morning we will visit the Pergamum acropolis, see another theater there and then head for Ephesus.

I am amazed at all I am seeing and what the next few weeks hold.

♥ ♥ ♥

Alice in Assos

Assos is one of my favorite places on Earth at the moment.

I have LOVED it here.

The theater was amazing and sooo very strange.

At least for what I am looking for.

Very helpful though and I'm excited to see what it will do for my study.

Assos also has a pretty interesting gate.

But lets face it, Holly and I were more interested in the few dozen sarcophagi in front of the gate.

Yes, I am in the sarcophagus.

This is the view from the Temple of Athena at the top of the hill.

Very faintly in the background you can see Lesbos where the poet Sappho resided.

GORGEOUS location.

And a picture of my chacos.

I accidentally dropped my sunglasses off a cliff.

:(

Sacrifice to Athena I guess.

Except I don't believe in the goddess Athena.

Guess I'm just a klutz then.

Pillars at the Temple of Athena.

Holly and I took silly pictures but they are to silly to be included here.

Also, I do not have them - Cyndy does.

Overall an absolutely beautiful day.

I finished it off by swimming in the hotel pool which was about a dozen feet from the Aegean Sea.

It was pretty marvelous.

I fell asleep and had a dream about Alice and Wonderland.

I was Alice.

I'm not sure who Holly was but her dress was big, yellow, had green dots, a bright pink sash and puffed sleeves.

Bruce was the Mad Hatter - Johnny Depp style but no makeup.

I woke up to the sound of Cyndy grabbing her sweater from the chair next to me.

It was a bit random but hey, I was asleep next to the Aegean, does it really matter how random it was?

Overall an absolutely lovely day.

We are leaving in the morning for Pergamum.

I'm not sure when I will have internet again but I will post as soon as I can.