My Birthday!!

First off, I want to say thank you to everyone that wished me a happy birthday!! That was so sweet! I got tons of emails and e-cards and phone calls and texts...plus the comments on here. :) I think I'm going to plan another birthday for myself in a few weeks!! :P 

SO!! For my birthday Nicole and I went horseback riding! It was a lot of fun. I must say...I'm extremely sore. My back, my arms, my shoulders, my legs, my feet...yeah. 

Even my thumb and pointer finger got a blister. But....

IT WAS SO WORTH IT! 

I'd do it again right now in a heartbeat. 

I got a sweet little ole thing. A little lazy, but she obeyed pretty well. 

 Nicole got a stubborn horse. All it wanted to do was eat...She was slapping that thing like crazy!

Meany. (She says she was just following instuctions...Riiiiight!). 

 Nicole and I...

Me...meditating over what would be a good wish :) 

Me and my Gramma

Present time!

 Then right in the middle of all of this, we get a call from Elder Wakefield's assistant pastor's wife.
She was at the grocery store and had just fallen and thought she broke something. 

So everyone (except for me, Nicole, and Austin) ran out the door to go get her. 

Turns out she dislocated her knee. They said it was terrible and really really ugly. :(

So now Sis. Hayde has a huge 'ole cast on her leg for the next 2 weeks. Poor thing. 

Gramma running out the door...

"Austin...what are you doing?? Get back here!"

Nicole and I were both feeling the pain from the riding earlier so she went upstairs and I curled up on the couch and we snoozed until everyone got back. While I was on the couch I could see Austin outside. He was doing all kinds of karate and kung foo...watching himself in the reflection of the glass. It was funny :))

After everyone got back, we did the cake...Nicole smashed my face all over that cake. Haha :)

It was kinda gross, actually. 

Cleaning up...

Ummm, Nicole...

You still have frosting on your face...?

;)

The end!!

The Life of Beth :)

Happy Birthday!

...to my beautiful, wonderful sister Bethany!! 

Who is now 20!

Estas son las mañanitas
que cantaba el Rey David
a las muchachas bonitas
se las cantamos así:
Despierta, mi bien despierta,
mira que ya amaneció
ya los pajaritos cantan
la luna ya se metio... :)

Aww... La mom and little Bethany

Bethany... before she was saved :))

Then she went to church. And left all that behind her :P

Cute sisters :)

The Wakefield and Zeppa girls. 

Proof: She's been an animal lover her whole life!

Bethany with one of our many pets in Mexico.

Jess and Beth

Sweet 16 :)

Beth doing what she loves most! (the horse really did have a head...really... LOL)

And here she is at her graduation...

Beth teaching her class

Beth and I

Happy Birthday Beth! We love you!

Beau's Before and After

When we left for the U.S. back in May, Beau was just a puppy. He's still a puppy, but he's huge. 

He's 10 months old right now. He's learning to stand up for himself when he goes out into the streets. He used to just roll over onto his back with his feet in the air. ;)

Here are some before and after pictures of him...

Before:

Now:

Before:

...

This was last week :) He still loves his baths!

Before:

Now...

He's lost his afro-ish, fuzzy baby hair and is all sleek and shiny now.

Before:

Now:

Same bed...haha :)) He's a bozo. 

Awwww...

Hey, he's STILL cute!!

Austin and the Parrots

The birds usually run from Austin, but today he came out with a banana and they went after him!

Austin with Dumplin' and Mattie

Awww :)

Escape From Choir

The past two choir practices, the kids have been SUPER late. As in like, an hour or more. This past Saturday Nicole, Javier and I decided it was time to teach them a lesson. Choir practice was scheduled for 6:00pm and the three of us sat around the kitchen table jamming with plastic cups and a tissue box until 7pm. The rest of the kids still hadn't shown up so we decided we would go have some fun instead of just sitting around. 

So at 7:10 we beat it out of the house running like crazy towards the bus stop a few blocks away. We didn't want to get halfway down the street then get a call from home saying that they had shown up. I was wearing my rain boots, they weigh about 10 kilos each, so I was feeling the burn in my legs (and am still feeling it--ha). 

Meditating at the church. Dalaiiiiii. 

Me, confessing. 

Derrrrr. Follow the fingerrrrrr. 

There was a marathon going on downtown. 

Me and Javier singing Sunday school songs, with motions :)

Also, we bought tacos to eat on the bus because we were kind of in a hurry. 

But before we ate our dinner, we ate dessert. Rice pudding. Yummy!

When we got on the bus and opened up the tacos, this is what we found...

Two little tiny scrunched up egg rolls. Hahah :) But they were good so...

Javier eating his taco

Practice: 

This Saturday @ 7pm

OR

Meet us downtown at 7:30pm :)

We did have a few funny experiences while downtown, at the expense of Nicole's dignity...

We were in line downtown at Woolsworth. The check-out aisles are about 6 inches wide. 

I told Nicole to get in one line and I'd get in the next one to see who's line finished first. She wasn't paying attention though and let a bunch of people in front of her so she came and got in line with me. 

AGAIN...she starts looking at all the little goodies on the shelves and a lady comes and gets in line behind me. 

So Nicole says "excuse me" and tries to squeeze past this poor lady. Her arms were totally full of stuff.

Anyways, Nicole tries to get in front of this lady and knocks a HUGE bottle of shampoo out of her arms...RIGHT ONTO THIS LADY'S TOE!!

The bottle was about this size:

All I heard was a BANG and Nicole whispers, "Beth, did you see what I just did??"

I look behind me and this lady's head is thrown back, her jaw is clenched shut and her eyes...well I couldn't see them...Maybe she got some shampoo in her eyes because she was doing that thing you do when you get soap in your eyes when you're in the shower. :))

Kinda like this:

Then she started doing Lamaze. Hahaha. :) 

Ok, all of this was true except for the Lamaze part. 

Her toe probably looks like this:

THEN we walk out and all of us are laughing and Nicole is re-enacting all of this and she almost TRIPS over a beggar that was sitting outside of the store. He's just a chest. Really! Well, he does have a head...

I have a picture of him somewhere, but I can't find it right now. 

We were going to invite the hurt lady to church...We sensed that she might need some healing. 

But we kind of felt it wasn't the right time. 

Ya know?