ohana search

brett and i have been the family history consultants for the ward for about a year. it has been such a huge blessing. yeah, my teaching skills really aren't the best but i learn so much everytime we do teach. it also really helps that i get to teach with brett, who helps fill in the holes i've forgotten about. teaching this class has also really helped me to get motivated to do my own family history. my parents have put it upon me to do the filipino side of my family. my dad and my aunt has been working on my white side of the family so its up to me to do the brown side. i'm excited to be up to the challenge but its been so discouraging. it is so hard to find people who specialize in asian countries when on campus all the family history missionaries specialize in european countries...so brett and i really plan on going down to SLC (like we seem to do every month anyways) to check out the family history center. the missionaries told me i'll be able to look at films and stuff to find more info on my family. i'm excited for when we get to do that.

doing your family history is so important and thats something we can't stress enough about every sunday. you know when you get married you wanna be with your family forever, don't you think your ancestors wanna be with you forever too?

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pca gig

on monday, martin luther king jr's birthday, it was a whole day of practice and performing with the PCA. i'm the vice pres of PCA this semester so i get to have a lot more input this time. i love it. we went to idaho falls to perform for 150 mentally handicapped people and got the experience of a lifetime. they were seriously one of the best audiences we've had, they were so energetic. not like some of the snobby singles wards we usually perform for. there was this one guy in the front row who wore a cowboy hat and was yelling ya-hoo! the whole time. so freakin hilarious.

polynesian dancing has become one of my true loves. i was the worst as memorizing formulas and writing papers in school, but poly dancing, i think is safe to say i really picked up on. its also given me so much more confidence and helped me to be more outgoing.
during our performance we usually do some audience participation. our guys would teach the dudes of the audience how to do the haka and us ladies teach the girls to shake it like a salt shaker. i was the one doing the teaching this time. we even had a few gentlemen toddling to the stage with the ladies.
the ladies were so enthusiastic about learning! the guy on my left wearing the pink and white lei gave me a HUGE hug when we were all leaving, which i admit was just a little weird but funny. such innocent people who can't do a lot but can change peoples' lives and perspectives. we ended up doing 2 encores for them!

my PCA fam. it changes a lot every semester but the love is always the same.
the hard part is just trying to get brett to do the haka with the guys....

the date

today marks one of three momentous occasions in me and brett's new life together. 2 years ago today brett and i went on our FIRST DATE. it always feels wonderful thinking about when we first met and our first date. here's what went down that fateful night i met brett. it was the beginning of winter semester, january 2008 on a thursday night. my roommate rachel was then dating brett's roommate brandon. i went over to brandon's apt with rachel to play games, thinking i had already met brandon's roomies, i went over feeling like i have no need to impress anyone i wore something similar to this outfit and these EXACT colors...

also with NO MAKEUP!

how heinous is that? but there he was, sitting at the counter in his cute polo shirt and jeans. (thinking to myself, "well i've never met this one before!") i fell in love with his eyes and with how genuinely sweet he was, it also helped that he had the british version of the office :) he also tried to help me cheat at dominos...so i left their apt thinking that a person like brett couldn't ever be interested in me especially when his first sight of me was when i was dressed like a clown on crack.

then the phone call came that saturday morning. brett called me and asked me out to bowling and dinner that night. usually when a boy asks me out for bowling i say no! i really suck at bowling and think that its sort of a lame date idea. but when brett asked me i couldn't say no to a cute boy! i wouldn't care even if he had asked me to play baseball in the snow, eh maybe i would say no. jk.

anyways, we went out that night and we ended up double dating with another one of my roommate and his roommate. bowling with brett was great, he made it fun and memorable and dinner was even more amazing. yeah we just went to one of rexburg's finest restaurants, applebees, but when i go on dates i examine how the date is going. is he just going on about some random crap? are there lots of awkward moments? those are deal breakers with me. but that night with brett, he didn't do either. we talked and ate the whole time. absolutely no awkward moments and we asked and answered each other's questions about each other. such a magical night. brett definitely got 2 thumbs up for the date. the night came and went, i REALLY wanted to go out with him again. so i asked rachel to tell brandon to tell brett that i liked him and wanted to go out with him again. and the rest is history. brett was a single man for just a few days at byu-idaho. it was also his first semester there.

i later asked brett how the heck did he like me when i was dressed in such bad 80's colors? he said he overlooked all of that and he said he thought my face was pretty. i married such a darling boy. he's pushes me to be a better person even when i'm being stubborn. he's also helped me to dress a WHOLE lot better too! :) i'm grateful that he never gives up on me and that he has such a strong love for the gospel.

this was from one of our early dates. snowboarding. that was one of the funnest things i've ever done in my life! also that night was when brett kissed me the first time! i'm feeling SUPER giddy right now reminiscing about all this. we've had such happy memories and we'll have tons more in the future.

stay tuned for when our engagement night comes!

♥

farewell to O9

the year of O9 has come and gone...on facebook there's this app that makes a little collage of your facebook statuses from the year. when i made this i got a little sentimental knowing that some great things happened to me this year....sorry the type on the collage is small, just squint when you look at it.

while in salt lake brett and i took advantage of being in a bigger city than being in rexburg or idaho falls and ate at some delightful restaurants we couldn't otherwise get here. we found a new fav and ate at a new brasilian "fast food" place. brett's got me hooked on brasilian food. i just need to learn how to cook it.

these are brigadeiros, a sweet delicious brasilian treat covered in choco sprinkles!

we drove down ALL THE WAY TO MANTI despite the weather conditions which weren't that horrible as expected. it always surprises us how good utah is about plowing cuz rexburg sucks! anywhoz, it was WAY FUN seein my sis and her hub, travis.

sometimes, only she gets me. ♥

they took us out to a delicioso pizza place! thanks guys!

we got back to rexburg on new years eve and hung out with our great friends steve and gwen! we love them very much!

we had a great time new years eve, we played this one game and when we saw the clock it was 3 mins past midnight. we decided it was time to break out the bubbly, as in, tasty sparkling cider aka mormon champagne.

i've never really done resolutions but i'd like to try and commit myself to them this new year

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

• be nicer to people-i suck at being nice to idiot customers. i am a nice person but seriously when i worked at wal-mart i ran into the dumbest of dumbest people there. but yeah i'm gonna try to be more nice esp while working at jamba when we're trying to promote healthy living. :)
  
  fin.