Pennsylvania Trip

Last month we had a chance to go to Pennsylvania for a little over a week. Hayden's whole family went there to spend the week with Hayden's brother Michael before he left for his mission. It was a wild and fun week! We did so much! I felt like we were there for a month because our days were so long and we did so many things. Here is a recap of what we did.

Saturday May 12th:
We flew from SLC to Denver. In Denver we met up with Hayden's sister Crystal and her family. We then flew into Philly. We got there pretty late, so once we arrived at Hayden's sister Tiffany's house we went straight to bed.

Sunday:
After only a few hours of sleep we woke up bright and early to get ready for church. Church started at like 9:30 in Philly but it takes 45 minutes to get to the church building from where Tiffany lives. The building isn't very far from their house, there is just a million stop lights. Church was very interesting in downtown Philly. Tiffany's ward has a lot of Liberian people. They all show up in church in their native African clothes. I had a very hard time understanding them when they spoke, but it was a fun experience. On our way back from church, Hayden's dad drove us through West Philadelphia (no I didn't see the fresh prince). That place is scary! I felt more unsafe driving through there than I ever did in Armenia. We had a beautiful BBQ to celebrate Mother's Day and then we drove to Hershey Pennsylvania.

These are the condos that we stayed at for the week while we were in Hershey. 

Monday and Tuesday: We spent these two days just hanging out. We went shopping, cooked yummy food, toured the town, and went to Hershey Chocolate World. At the chocolate world they take you on a little ride that shows you how they make their chocolate. It was fun and the whole place smelled like chocolate.

                 

 My wonderful sister in law took these pictures. I told her that I would be stealing them for my blog. She is a super talented photographer. All I had was my piece of junk phone to take pictures with. I am sure you will be able to tell which pictures those are. Anyway, thanks Jessica!

Wednesday: NYC!!! We left early in the morning and drove the 3 hours to Staten Island. Once we found a parking spot (not an easy task) we caught the ferry to go to Manhattan. Hayden hates NYC so he went fishing, and I went alone with a few people in his family. We had a lot of pressure on us because we were trying to make it to the Broadway ticket lottery so we could try and get tickets to Wicked. It wasn't meant to be because we barely missed our chance. But we got something better instead (well at least I think so). There was a guy on the street asking people if they wanted to go to the David Letterman show. Yes please! Sign me up! We got tickets to go see his show...and they were free! To waste some time until we had to go get in line for the show, we went to TOYS R US, Rockefeller center, Times Square, and just walked around. While we were in line for the show the craziest thing happened! We saw two missionaries. So we called them over and they told us that they were doing their "tourist" P-day because they were going home the next week. While we were talking to them, 2 more elders came up. I looked at the one elder and I was like " ARE YOU ELDER DAVIS!?!" " I SERVED WITH YOUR SISTER IN ARMENIA!!". I couldn't believe that I just happened to run into Cami's brother in the middle of Times Square. Such a small world! I couldn't spend much time talking because we were being herded into the David Letterman show. Before they let you into the show they give you a long speech about how you are supposed to constantly clap and laugh. Even if you don't think a joke is funny, laugh anyway. So we did just that! We clapped and clapped and I only had to fake laugh 1 or 2 times. The music was loud, the energy was high. We had a blast! And we got to see Betty White. She was the guest on the show that day and she was a hoot! I loved it all. I want to go back someday and try to go to more shows. After that we caught the ferry again and headed home.

 Naked Cowboy in Times Square

                 

Humidity is rough on my hair when I want my hair to be straight. I had a Gyro for lunch. 

 

   The Staten Island Ferry

                       

Thursday: We went to Hershey Amusement Park. I just have to say...I hate roller coasters!!! Now that I am an old woman, they absolutely kill me! I get so sick on them. I went on about 5 roller coaster rides and then I left the roller coaster group and went and helped with the little kids. I took my nephew Thomas to the tap dance show so his parents could go on some rides together. He loved it. Then we got ice cream. He was a great date! We spent all day at Hershey Park. After we left the park Hayden, his dad, and brother went on an overnight hike. They are absolutely insane! We tried to head back to Hayden's home town Lewisburg that night, but 5 miles into our trip we had car troubles and didn't want to risk it. So we went back to the condos and stayed with Hayden's grandparents.

Sleeping Thomas

                                              

Chloe on the ride with her cousins

                                           

Thanks AAA for towing the van!

                                       
Friday: After lots of clothes shopping for our family pictures, we finally made our trip to Lewisburg. We spent the day chilling by the pool and just relaxing.

Saturday: We had a birthday party for Matthew, got ready for family pictures, and then took the family pictures. They turned out beautiful! I only have a few because we are still waiting for the disc with all of the pictures to be sent to us. Here is what we have...

Sunday: Michael's farewell and Eagle Court of Honor.

Monday: We left bright and early so that Hayden and I could drive Michael to the MTC in Utah. A man in their ward needed his truck brought to Utah so he asked if we could drive it there. He said he would pay for gas and hotel. We agreed. (just to save our plane tickets for another time) It took us 2 full days to make the trip. We drove from Pennsylvania to Iowa City and we spent the night there. Then we made the rest of the trip the next day. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We took lots of breaks (too many in my opinion).
When he said he would pay for gas we assumed he would just give us money. Well that was not the case. He had two giant barrels of diesel gas in the back of his truck that we had to try and siphon. That was no easy tasks. Michael ended up swallowing a mouthful of gas when he was sucking on the hose. That added a good 4 hours to a trip because it was not a fast process. We got to Utah at about 1 am Wednesday morning. We slept at my aunt's house, visited with Hayden's grandma, then took Mikey to the MTC.

Loading up the truck

                                         

What a pain!

                                           

 Golfing in the middle of nowhere Nebraska while we filled up on gas. (These boys were in no hurry to get anywhere)

      MTC

                           
                                                                         

Much thanks to Lisa and Doug for making this trip happen!! We will be going to another family reunion in Gatlinburg Tennessee for the 4th of July. This summer is gonna wear me out! :)

Scout Campout

Well we just survived our first campout with the 11 year old scouts. Since it was the first campout for the boys, we decided it would be best to do it in town. One of the scout leaders has some land in his back yard, so we did it there. I went after work for a while and then went home to sleep in my warm bed. Hayden stayed the night with everyone. I got up bright and early and went back over to help get breakfast ready. It was a lot of fun. We ate lots of junk food (which was awesome for me because I haven't had any sugar or junk food since I started my new diet). It rained, snowed, and the wind was blowing like crazy. Hayden thought his tent was going to blow away in the middle of the night. (I'm glad I was home in my bed) All in all, it was a success. Here is some of the pictures I took this morning.

This is Hayden right after I woke him up. The wind kept him up all night. He looks pretty tired huh?

 

Brother Holkanson making the cocoa.

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 Us cooking breakfast and looking goofy.

 We let the boys choose what they wanted to do for breakfast. We had hash browns, eggs, sausage, pickles, chips and salsa, and fried pop tarts.

TaKe Me ThErE

A year ago Hayden and I went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. Hayden wanted a more rustic mountain honeymoon and I wanted tropical paradise. Well I won. He didn't seem too thrilled that we were going to Hawaii. It wasn't until a year later I found out how he truly felt about the most amazing place ever. He told me the other day that he is craving Hawaii and wants to go back. COUNT ME IN! There is just something about that place that makes me so happy. Financially its not possible for us to go right now, so I will take us all there through our honeymoon in Hawaii photos. 

 View from our condo.

Our sweet rental car.

Dinner on the patio.

 Fresh coconut

Alright, it is not quite the same as being there, but now you can all see why I want to go back so bad. Who is with me? Anyone up for saving your pennies and planning a trip with us? :)

Update

Well it has been forever since I last wrote a post. I am terrible at this whole blog thing. It just took me 5 minutes to figure out how to make a new blog post. All of my friends keep hounding me about updating my blog. I have more free time now days so I guess I can do that. :)

Hayden and I moved to Idaho Falls on December 17th 2011. We lived in my sister's unfinished basement for 3 weeks. They were so kind to let us stay there but I diligently searched for a place with walls and a place we could call our own. On Janurary 9th we moved into our new apartment. I just love our new place! Compared to our last apartment this is a palace! It is a 2 bedroom apartment with vaulted ceilings, brand new carpet, granite counter tops, and fresh paint(and no mold!). It is nice having more room to live. We love living in Idaho Falls, and we don't miss Provo at all. It was a great move for us and has helped us in so many ways.

Hayden is working for my brother building homes and he really likes it. He is learning so much. He hopes to be able to build our house someday. He plans to go back to school beginning of next year, but for right now he is taking some time to decide what he wants to do with his life. We have been trying to live a more active life so Hayden has been playing basketball 3 times a week ( when his work schedule allows). We have also been playing some tennis, and Frisbee golf. Hayden is really in to listening to books and right now and he has been listening to a lot of business books on how to become rich. He wants to be a millionaire by next week! I wouldn't mind that. Who wants to join us on that quest?

I am working part time for Sears. I really enjoy it because it is very laid back and low stress. My last job about made me nuts, so this is a nice change. I also enjoy only working part time. It gives me a chance to keep up on chores and errands. Our house is in better order (most the time) now days. In my quest to lead a more active life, I have been going to a work out class called RIPPED for the last 12 weeks. It is super intense and I really like it. My sister in law teaches the class and she does an amazing job! If I can just eat right, I'll be svelte in no time! :p

Something that consumes a HUGE part of our time and our lives is that Hayden and I are trying to get pregnant. We have tried and failed for the last 14 months and it has been very hard on us. I hate opening up about my feelings, but maybe it will be good for me to write about my thoughts. I have seen 3 doctors and 1 chiropractor to find out what is going on. I've had 5 blood tests done and we also had Hayden tested. They say everything is fine with Hayden and they didn't see anything major with my blood work. The only thing that was borderline a problem was my glucose levels. So the only thing they have done is put me on fertility medications. I just finished my 3rd cycle of the medications. I don't have health insurance so it makes things difficult. The doctors make me kind of frustrated because it doesn't seem  like they are really trying to help me. They just give you a drug and send you on your way. So that is why I tried a different route. The other day I went to a chiropractor who has a holistic approach. He did some muscle response tests on me and according to his "witch doctor" tests he found that my thyroid may not be working to its full potential and that  I need to balance my glucose levels. So he gave me some herbs to get everything working better and I am on a strict diet of no sugar and no carbs. And boy am I starving!! I could go for a giant chocolate cake about now! :) (who wants to bring me one?) But I will try to resist. Hopefully something works because finding out each month that we aren't pregnant is hard, especially since everyone I know is pregnant and had no problem becoming pregnant. I know there has got to be some lesson we are supposed to learn from this, but I am having a hard time figuring out what it is. That is the hardest part...not knowing what I need to do to make it happen. What I need to learn before we will be blessed with a child. I just keep asking " what does "he" want from me?" "Are we being punished?" This is definitely a huge boulder in my spiritual path that I am having a hard time getting over. Hayden is full of faith so he keeps me some what optimistic. Maybe the only answer is more faith. I don't know. Im still working on finding the answer.

Here is a few random pictures from the last few months. They were taken with my phone so the quality isn't great, but o well.

 Our new washer and dryer. Definitely worth going into debt for. :)

 I was babysitting Caleb and we were trying to come up with a costume for him for Dr. Suess day at school. He mentioned that he could put whiskers on his face and wear a Cat in the Hat hat. I told him that was a great idea and I imagined his mom using eyeliner to draw the whiskers. He had a different idea. He slipped away into the bathroom without me knowing and drew whiskers and a cat nose on his face with permanent marker. Good thing I remembered a tip from Hayden's sister about getting permanent marker off with toothpaste. It worked like a gem, and 5 minutes later he was whisker less. ( Don't you just love his cute little face??)

 My oldest niece Bryndee got baptized.

 In celebration of St. Patty's Day, I made corned beef and cabbage. It was my first time trying it. And it will also be my last. Corned beef is not my thing. But it was fun to be festive!

 While their parents went to dinner for their anniversary, I had my beautiful nieces over to make mini pizzas and cookies. We had so much fun making fun shapes out of the dough and putting all of the toppings on.

 Then we made our cookies into cute shapes. (Kloee is showing you all her new CTR bracelet that grandma and grandpa gave all of the grand kids at the baptism.)

 At the end of March we went to see my parents in St. George. We went with Brock and Jenn and their 3 girls. It was beautiful down there and very warm.(I of course got super sunburned. I never learn!) Since all of us weren't able to be with the rest of the family for Thanksgiving, my parents made us a thanksgiving feast! This is my dad with his "exquisite" turkey.

 Hayden and I have been called to be scout leaders for the 11 year old scouts. After the boys passed off a few of their goals we let them go out and play football with Hayden. They loved it. Our first camp out is this weekend. Wish me luck!

Since we don't have a yard we love going to the park. There are some great parks in town. Last night we went and played basketball. It was fun and Hayden is teaching me how to shoot the ball right. I will be a pro in no time.

Anyway, I will keep you all updated on the status of everything. Thanks for listening to my ramblings. Its probably something I should just keep to myself, but whats the fun in that? :) The more people who know the better right? I promise I will take pictures of the apartment soon. I just need to get Hayden to hang a few more things on the wall and then it will be ready for pictures.

P.s. Comment if you read this...I would love to know who my audience is! :)