Final Few Farewells

(Not the best pic, but I love it!)

   

   On July 31st I made the long drive to Preston, Idaho to attend the farewell of my good friend Brachen Alder. I've known Brachen since we were really little actually. He is related to the Prochnows so whenever his family came to the ward I saw him. I got introduced to him at one of Skyler's birthday parties when we were about 13 or 14. We've been pretty good friends ever since! I've been camping with him and his family and several other adventures. My favorite, yet scariest memory is when we were in Cub River, Idaho and Brachen was driving Skyler, Randon, and I to his house. It was raining like you wouldn't believe and Brachen was taking these really sharp turns at 40-45 mph. HOLY CRAP! I was freaked! But it was fun :) Also, when I turned 16, Brachen was my first date. We went to a haunted house in Salt Lake. SO much fun! 

   When we got to Preston we were all seated in the chapel waiting for the boys (Brachen spoke with his cousin) to speak. When it finally came Brachen's time we were all curious about how it was all going down. Fun fact about Brachen: he's Deaf. Brachen signed, and his mother, who had a copy of his talk, read aloud from the audience. The Spirit was so strong there! It was a brilliant talk!

 

   Brachen was called to the New York, New York Sign Language mission. Good luck buddy!

Smallz+Me+Orem=EPICNESS!!!

So, last week I made my final trip to Orem so I could move all of my stuff out of my apartment. This time, however, my little sister Mollie came to help me. We partied it up while we were there! On our first day there we decided to go on a hike to the "Y". It was really fun! The view was beautiful! Mollie kind of kicked my butt because she is in better shape than me, and her legs are a lot longer.

These were a few of our glorious pictures that we took on our way up the mountain. Mollie saw the rock and was so excited to take a picture on it. I was a little worried, but we both made it alive :). We finally made it to the top and we were both worn out. We took a picture together up top and then some victory pictures in the middle of the "Y". And we found a little lizard friend! We named him Tito :)

We really wanted to get the scenery behind us so I set the camera on a timer and shuffled down the mountain fast enough to make a good picture. We were so excited! When we got to the bottom of the "Y" we started down the trail and saw this wonderful sign...

Whoops...I guess they should put one of these on the top of the letter too :) After the hike we got some J-Dawgs and ice cream at Cold Stone. Yummy!

Later that afternoon we went shopping at the mall and then to dinner at The Pizza Factory. SOOO good! We had the chocolate lava cake. MMMMMM!!! On Tuesday morning Smallz and I packed up my entire apartment and we went to the Timpanogos temple to do baptisms for the dead.

After our lovely, peaceful trip in the temple we headed off to Thanksgiving Point for some good fun! We went to a really cool exhibit that they had that was full of blown glass. Like, this was ridiculously awesome stuff. My favorite, however, was the Harry Potter bowls. Yes, I am a crazed fan :) But seriously, aren't these things like so legit!?!?! And check out the fruit bowl too!

 

 

 

When we finished there we went in to the dinosaur exhibit. AWESOME!! We saw beasts of all kinds. Some were definitely a little scarier than others :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last stop on the great trip was the beautiful gardens! We saw the largest man-made waterfall and some beautiful flower gardens. All-in-all, my trip with Mollie was a great way to leave Orem behind :) LOVE YA SIS!!