Panama 2 1/2!

I keep forgetting that I'm still posting about my Panama trip, and I'm still on Monday! HAHAHA.

WARNING: long post with lots of pictures

Where were we... OH YA!

After lunch we set off to find SLOTHS while our tummy's settled.

Oh my heck! Its a sloth!!!
I was more excited about them than the dolphins ! (You might have to make the picture bigger to see it,
but it was there!)

Then we went to the best beach ever!
Red Frog Beach!
(whitest pair in Panama) Ok, story behind this beach is..
Its a public beach, but to get there you have to go on a half mile dirt path from the dock to the beach. I guess the guy who owns the land that the path crosses over got wise and decided to charge a fee to use the path. SO to get to the beach you have to pay this guy $2. The money doesn't go to the beach or the land, just straight to the pocket of this guy. LAME, but worth it in the long run. (he also yelled at us for getting off the path to take this picture.)


On our way to the beach we ran into 3 little boys with these HUGE leaves.
They opened them up and they had little red frogs!
I got so excited I asked if I could take their pictures and they started yelling "$5!! $5!!".
Psssshhh! ya right! I handed each one a quarter. No smiles in my picture, HA

This is Richard from England, a friend we made in our tour group.
He did not get the memo, because he paid full price for his photo.
It is quite a beautiful beach.
It was my first time experiencing warm water at a beach,
and it was surprisingly warm even with a storm coming in.
Remember the tour boat driver, Leo, I mentioned in my last Panama post? This is where he comes in.The whole time we are at Red Frog, he is trying to talk to Becky. "Rrrrebbecca, (rolling the R), do you like turtles? I can take you to an island tonight with lots of sea turtles" "Rrrrebbecca, do you like dancing, we could go to the discotheque tonight". Poor Becky, hahaha!

GRATUITOUS TOURIST PICTURES!

So that was our Monday. Needless to say we did not hang out with Leo, but man he was persistent. After our tour we grabbed the best $1 empanadas, made it to our room and fell asleep after the sun set.

Still more to come: Tuesday and Wednesday where we find another beach, and Melissa gets her own suitor!

update

Just a quick update on the wedding details:

Got the letter from the First Presidency in Utah saying as of Dec 8th, I am free to be sealed to my Jeremy!

OH HAPPY DAY!

SO, the temple is booked and the wedding is Feb 6th at 1pm! YAY!!!

Panama (post #2)

November already? Where has the time gone? Oh ya... spent reading all of your much more interesting blogs!

I decided its time again for me to continue the thrilling slide show of my trip to Panama.

***

When we last saw our beach babes, they were relaxing on the small Island of Colon (pronounced like cologne) in the tiny jungle town of Bocas del Toro:

We arrived on Sunday and it rained ALL DAY, not just rain, but RAIN!!! So not much to report. But Monday, oh Monday, it was beautiful!

(Warning: LOTS OF PICTURES)

We decided to go on a boat tour of the islands.
This is Becky on boat.

I'm on a boat!
with a German tourist!

The little boat went super fast and it was hilarious!
See the guy above my head? Thats Leo.
He fell in love with Becky, he is important, remember him.

We saw dolphins! They like to play in the wake of the boats.
Becky squealed and pointed every time we saw one, I wish I had a picture of it!
After Dolphin watching we went snorkeling!
HOT!I wish I had an under water camera, the fish were beautiful!

After snorkeling we had lunch at this place they take all the sight seeing boats.
All it was, was a dock with two areas of shade with picnic tables to eat on and at the end of the dock was a window to order and a bar to get a drink. Mmm... fresh pineapple juice...

My after lunch belly rub
(think you've had enough? There are still a TON of pictures from Monday, I'll make 2 posts so it won't be so overwhelming)

Join us next time to see: Panama (post #2 1/2)

Interruption

I know you are all DYING to know about the rest of my trip to Panama, but...

um sooo ..... this happened last night...

completely out of the blue!!!

Here's the story i emailed out:


The guy is Jeremy Davis and he's originally from 26th ward.
We met at a church activity last November and started dating near the end of February. He got accepted into BYU-Idaho and left in April for a Physics and teaching major, so we had been staying in contact through phone calls, thousands of texts and emails. We talked about how well our personalities compliment each other, how we miss each other, and how we could easily see the future with each other... which led to talking about marriage. Apparently that's when he bought the ring, HA! We've kept things on the down-low because he is pretty private and I didn't want to jinx it!

He came home the last week of July and while I was in Panama he sat with my parents and talked about us getting married. They are really supportive and think Jeremy is good for me :)

I honestly thought he would ask in November before thanksgiving, I'm trying to fly out to see Rexburg then drive back with him. He thought he was going to wait until September, but the ring was burning his pocket!

Yesterday we drove to his house from my work and went for a walk to the park after dinner. It was a BEAUTIFUL day in San Jose, so it was kind of busy at the park (loose dogs, joggers, pregnant walkers?) which made him kinda nervous so he lead the walk back to his house. We went to his back yard (while I was babbling like an idiot about nothing) and he turns to me and pulls the ring out of his pocket and asks "will you marry me?" then went down on one knee. I started hyperventilating and just stared at the ring and I think he asked "please?" or he made the puppy face and I thought he said please, hahaha! I finally said yes and after laughing my head off, I asked "what do we do now?".

We don't have a date set yet because there is a lot to do in our lives before then, but we are patient and are just happy to have each other in our lives!

Ta Da! now you are all caught up!

(old and not very flattering, but its the only one i have of us together)

PANAMA (post #1)

I LOVED PANAMA!!

So much happened! I'll just post pictures and tell the story of the picture! (all pictures are courtesy of Becky, I didn't have a working camera, HA!)

Vanessa and I at her wedding. Isn't she breath taking!!


Becky's plane was canceled so I did 24 hours of Panama by myself! I was so proud of myself and was surprised at how much Spanish I understood. She missed the wedding, but she made it just in time for our flight on Sunday to Bocas del Torro!


We stayed at the Bahia del Sol Bed and Breakfast in Bocas del Torro. Our room was amazing! we had the whole back balcony to ourselves with an outdoor shower, jacuzzi tub, and hammock!

They made us the BEST breakfasts with fresh pinapple every morning!

Thats all I have time for today, hopefully I can post more Bocas del Torro tomorrow!

Rhymes with Canada...

I'M GOING TO PANAMA!!!

Thats right, in almost 24 hours I will be soaking in the sun in the glorious country of Panama. Why am I going to Panama?

To see these co-workers/friends get married!
(she's from Panama, can you tell? no?)

Crazy Kids!

Will I be going alone?

NO! I'll be going with one of my best friends BECKY!

YAY! I'm so excited!

July's CD CALIFORNIA

Melissa's pick
1. Ray Charles - "America the Beautiful"

Jud's pick
2. Guy Clark - "Magdalene"

Keith's pick
3. Dirty Projectors - "Cannibal Resource"

Stacey's pick
4. Ben Kweller - "I Gotta Move"

Ellen's pick
5. Bishop Allen - "Click, Click, Click, Click"

Katie's pick:
6. Roisin Murphy - "Ruby Blue"

Brian's pick
7. The Avett Brothers - St. Joseph's

Side B

8. Phantom Planet - "California"

9. Rufus Wainwright - "California"

10. Beach Boys - "California Girls"

11. Ramones - "California Sun"

12. The Mommas and the Papas - "California Dreaming"

13. 2Pac - "California Love"

Rose Garden

I haven't been up to much so I thought I'd post some stuff that I never got around to posting.

In April? May? Rachel and I volunteered a Saturday to "dead head"* at the San Jose rose garden near my work. The garden was being dedicated that day by the Mayor and Rachel and I had a blast getting rained on, smelling flowers, and spreading feed pellets!

* "dead head" means to cut off the dead flowers and leaves off the bush to promote healthy growth. Not as much fun as it sounds.

A city councilman spoke (Rachel and I nicknamed him "El Guapo"!)

The Mayor is in the middle of the group ready to cut the ribbon for the "test bed". This garden is one out of 35 in the whole US to test new breeds of roses! We are very proud!

These are White Canadian Star roses

I don't remember the name of these...

These are Playboys! Hee hee!!!

Barber of San Jose?

Last night Rachel and I went to the Relief Society Enrichment Night of the Monta Vista ward (the OTHER singles ward, may we be hung for treason.) and Leighann taught us how to cut men's hair!

Its was fun, but now I know that I shouldn't bother with beauty school (not that I ever thought I should, hahaha)

My friend Nathan wanted to be my guinea pig, so I tried my best!

Leighann showing us how its done



Rachel and I are going to cut each others hair on Friday,
so Leighann told me that you have to cut curly dry. Who knew?



ya, so as I cut his hair I flung it forward with out thinking. Sorry Nathan!



You can't tell in the picture but its all uneven, BUT its consistently uneven



Leighann to the rescue! Rachel did a wonderful job with Leland's hair.
Both guys were extremely good and deserved lollipops

So as much fun as that was I think I will stick to my day job. Thanks Leighann and Nathan!

What the What?

Hi, um ya, I've been busy...

SO I have for you an etsy.com find that had me laughing out loud. Maybe because it was 8am and I am not usually so awake, or maybe because it was included in the "impressive things to come from etsy.com" email I get once a week. But what ever the reason I thought this is one of my favorite esty.com finds.

who knows I might even use it my self sometime... maybe... probably not.

To the untrained eye, this looks like an adorable cake topper, all rosey cheeked and cute... but why would Melissa post this?

BAM! ROSY CHEEKS!

OK, so maybe I'm the only one excited by this. LOOK! Its cute and clever!

for only $15 it can be yours!

MS Walk

Hi all!

I am participating in the 5k walk for MS again this year. I'm not asking for money (a very nice personal anonymously helped me reach my goal already) but if you want to look into what The MS Society is or how to help out or even what MS is this is a great website.

You can make a donation too if you really want to....

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=6080227&pg=personal&fr_id=9992

Happy Be-lated Valentine's Day

Hppy February 15th!

I spent most of yesterday sleeping, eating and watching Family Guy with my best friend.

Today and tomorrow are my make up for Valentine's Day with heart shaped candy, cookies, and cupcakes at linger longer and a family dinner out tomorrow. YAY!

a present for me!

So last week I'm taking my lunch break and I'm reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. So a co-worker from England sits down and asks me what I'm reading and we get talking about books.

I guess I should describe my coworker to you. He looks like he could have worked in the mines in some time of his life. He has a low brow and a deep under bite that makes him look angry all the time. A quiet deep voice with a thick British accent that is sometimes hard to hear. BUT when you actually sit down and have a conversation with him he is the most eloquently spoken man I've ever talked to! I've met his wife before too and she is adorable! They make quite the couple.

Back to the story: I'm such a dork; I pull out my big list of titles I want to read and we go through them and see if he's read any or if I'd read any on his mental list... for about a half an hour. He then starts telling me about his favorite book ever: The Poisenwood Bible. He says he loves to sit by the fireside in his study and get lost in the pages of this book. It changed his life. I excitedly wrote it down on my list and told myself I'd read it one day.

Fast forward to Monday: I walk to my desk and see the usual pile of letters and boxes people want shipped from over the weekend, sigh. I pick them up and put them on my desk and notice something else that is not wrapped in paper...


How excited am I!!!

I'm about a quarter of the way through and I love it!

Brought me to tears

I am not ashamed to say that while watching this I was brought to tears. It is beautiful and I think that this is what life should be like anyways.




here's a tissue.

(if someone knows if this is improve everywhere or if this was made just for the commercial, I would love to know)

John Muir Woods

Oh man, its been a while since my last update...

A bunch of my friends and I went to John Muir Woods in Mill Valley (north of the golden gate bridge) and we had a blast!

Middle of January and most of us were in short sleeves and shorts! I love Cali!

We saw ladybugs, banana slugs, our friend Paul shimmy down a log (off the path!) and get wedged between two trees (karma kills).

It was the perfect day and we are already planning another trip!