The Keyboard is Mightier than My Public Speaking

All right. So This post is about a couple of things I have written in the past week. First of all, I am going home in a week and because I am going on a mission once I get there (and once I get my call) I was asked to bear my testimony at church in in Provo. Since I knew about it ahead of time I wrote it out. Now, you understand the title of this post. I posted it on my other blog whatiexhale.blogspot.com. Also, I have finished the book I have been writing: The Key to Perfection. I guess, finished isn't the right word, it still has a lot of work but I have written it from chapter 1 to the end so I'm going to say that I finished it. This is my fourth book now, though I haven't tried to publish them so it's a bit note worthy, I hope that after my mission, this story might be the first one I publish. Cross my fingers on that one. Any way, I posted an excerpt from chapter one on the same blog.

Something else I have been doing is trying to fit in as many visits to the temple as possible before I go home since I have better access to temples here in Provo. I also realized I had taken no pictures of the Provo temple, here are a few:

My Day Off!

Temple Square Fun. Enough said.

Oh What Do You Do In The Summer Time.

Hey, everyone, Kevin here. I thought it was about time to give a summer update. Here are some of the events that have taken place but not all...I have been lacking on my picture taking. Also I put an update on my mission plans and explained some of what has been going on concerning those plans on a facebook "note" and on my blog "What I Exhale."

Here is a link to my blog. Here is a link to the facebook note.

Now, on to my summer!This was taken at a ward activity. It was night in the movies. I was Ron Stoppable from the Kim Possible Movie. I'm next to "the Rrunnaway Bride" My room mate Trevor and his girlfriend Sarah went as Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. They are both really cool. The ninja is my room mate AJ. Hermiony Granger all the way on the left is Anna Nichols, she also a really good friend of mine. (We are Harry Potter and Kelly Clarckson buddies.) Above is a picture of me, my old room mate Casey Stoddard, and our good friend Jen Palladino (who just recently got engaged). We are at a wedding reception of our friends Vashti and Steve Porter. Jen was there all the way from CT!

Now, this is an awesome group. These are the cholas! On the top is Kelsey Mortensen on the left and Lauren Hungate on the right. On the bottom row (left to right) is Kaitlyn Mortensen, Natasha Singh, and Nikki LeFever (who is leaving for her mission on Wed! (the 15th). We are all really excited that she is going to Poland) This picture was taken at a Kelly Clarckson concert. Anna Nichols (Hermione in the earlier picture) and Kelly Uhariot were also there...but I think this picture was taken before we saw them. It was a blast!

In this picture I am attacking Shannon Wilde with her laptop (this is staged by the way). She was here for a week and a half visiting. She used to live in the ward but she left for the summer before going to Prague.

Kris Swinson, my old room mate and current room mate (aka my short room mate, aka the dwarf, etc.), Lauren, Shannon and I all went to Diego's a Mexican restauraunt. It was fun and you don't get too many pictures of Kris so I thought this one was important. I also got to drive his car for about 10 seconds. It was crazy. Because Kris is a dwarf he has extensions on the peddals and his seat has a HUGE extra cussion on it to boost him forward. I could barely drive it becuase I was so scrunched. It was pretty awesome.

Also, with my calling in the sunday school presidency I have had the opportunity to teach a couple of times and I wanted to share a video I used for class one week. Here it is:

Manti, The "Jungle", Stadium of Fire, and the Alpine Loop

This is a multi-event update all rolled into on awesome blog post. Just kidding, don't get to excited it probably won't be all that exciting. Brent and I went to the Manti pageant again this year, we went up a little early and went through the Manti La Sal National Forest, which was beautiful. It is amazing how many different landscapes one state can be home to. That was fun, we were joined before the pageant by Brent's brother Eric, his girlfriend Ali, and her friend visiting from Texas, whose name escapes me right now :( Yikes. Anyways... the pageant was good at always and there was quite an interesting protester crowd including the "Jews for Jesus" who told us they had the same beliefs as us, but we were wrong.. yeah.. figure that one out...Anyways, it was a great presentation as usual, and Elder Perry said the opening prayer. For those of you out there who don't know who that is, he is one of our twelve apostles, like in Christ's day and the pageant is about how the Book of Mormon came about and the restoration of our church, and Christ's appearance in the Americas. As for those of you who do know all of that stuff already,it is a fantastic pageant and you should all check it out sometime if you get the chance. Second, the "jungle". Brent's family came to visit this past week on their way back from Yellowstone and Eric insisted he show us this place him and Ali found that they call... the "jungle." I suppose it is because it looks a little bit like the television show LOST, which is obviously a jungle, and it was raining and misty on the first day they came. I will say it is more swampy and wet than the majority of Utah and Utah valley, but still didn't meet the "jungles" of Indiana in my opinion. The mosquitos however thoroughly enjoyed me being there so I had to wear a hoodie in the middle of summer so they couldn't devour my flesh. Third, for the fourth, work was so slow they let me get off early, and I went with two of my roommates to see the fireworks put on by the Stadium of Fire/Freedom Festival at the BYU football stadium. I would have to say I was expecting a little more, but they were pretty good. I got some pretty sweet pictures anyway. It started sprinkling a little during them, and that morning during the most ridiculously crowded parade I've ever sat through it did pour, also adding new meaning to the phrase "It's raining on our parade." The parade was about 2 hours long, complete with giant floating Madeline, Paddington Bear, and a giant Eagle, about 12 high school marching bands, Hawaiian/Tongan Hula dancers and their own Polynesian band, and 3, yes THREE, Bagpipe bands. I didn't even know there were three in the United states... but..alas, they are all in the Utah Valley I guess. Anyways, people were lined up 24 HOURS in advance to mark their spot for the parade which happened to be going by on the main street that I live on, so there were piles of people sitting outside of our complex all night, kind of amusing. Anyways, enough rambling.Pictures included yadda yadda... Oh P.s. I have included some pictures (at the end) of Alpine Loop, which goes through the Provo canyon/Sundance, which is fantastic. There are trees with carvings from the 40s I'm sure from BYU students, and some really cool waterfalls, etc. The day we went it was raining and absolutely stunning. Also you should be able to either single or double click the pictures to see larger versions of them. Not sure which so just mess around with it... :)

Zion NP

For Memorial Day, some friends and I went to Zion for the weekend. Most of it is posted in pictures on ... http://heidisscrapbook.shutterfly.com Here are a few teasers of the trip. We did a few hikes, until my knee gave out the first day, and then the second day, everyone but Brent and I went on some crazy canyon hikes, and Brent and I did a few smaller hikes because my knee was bad, and his ankle kept messing up. :) It was fun!

Day At the Farm

The weekend started on Friday evening with two graduations at Jasper High School. We did some party hopping, too. First we went to the graduation party of Mark Miller, one of Kevin's friends from church. We then went to the graduation party of Joe Luegers. Joe is the son of Jeff's cousin. It was an enjoyable evening except for our flat tire problem. Jeff's Sister Jane was at the party for Joe and came home with us to spend the night. She was here until 10:30 Saturday morning. When she left Jeff and Jo went to the family farm in Holland, Indiana for a day of work. While at the farm Jeff cut the weeds between the trees that he and Kevin planted three years ago. Jo pulled some weeds around the trees. Jeff's knees got really sunburned. I have included some pictures of the trees and of Jeff cutting down the weeds.

The picture of the apron is a gift to Jo from the Primary for her many years of service in the Primary. It is really cool.

New York Weekend

This picture is Heidi and Kevin with cousins Jana and Bradly

Jeff and I met Heidi and Kevin in the Syracuse airport on Friday April 24. We spent the night in a motel there and visited with family. On Saturday April 25, We attended the wedding of Jeff's Nephew, Brad. The wedding went well and we had fun at the reception. The family was all together and it was good to see everyone again. Grandmother enjoyed her time with Heidi and Kevin. They played games together. Grandmother was looking forward to playing with them since they did that when we visited her in Evansville.

On the following day we went Palmyra, New York to visit some of the church's historical sites there. We went to the Hill Cumorah, The Sacred Grove and the Smith Family Farm and the Palmyra Temple. We got to see some of the beautiful stained glass windows of the temple. We had to take Heidi and Kevin the airport on Monday to catch their flight back to Salt Lake City. We had a good weekend together.





#2 the Sacred Grove
#3 the family
#4 Jo on the Hill Cumorah.

Holi Hare

So, every March the local Indian Hindu temple, and probably all hindu temples around the world, do this thing they call the festival of colors. It is from an ancient tradition in which this demon (I can't remember her name... ) was immune to fire. So she would take babies into the fire and burn them. Well, one day, she was supposed to take a five year old boy into the fire (not exactly sure who the boy was... I was only half listening when they explained it because it was super loud), anyways, she was supposed to take this little boy in. While she went into the fire she was chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Hare, Krishna Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare (which is the chant they use now in their worshiping). Well instead of the fire killing the babies as it usually did, the fire killed the demon and so now they chant this while burning the demon at the festival. Hare Krishna is also their God, of some sort, they have a lot of Gods, sorry I'm not getting this exactly right. Anyways, the colors, and the festival represent the coming of Spring, and the Hindu's believe the God loves colors, this is why they use the peacock as their symbol in many traditional ceremonies, they believe it is God's favorite bird because of the exquisite colors. It is evident also in the ceremonial robes and everyday clothing they wear. They are always dressed in many colors. So, the whole point of that explanation is that every March they hold this ceremony and invite the surrounding communities. A HUGE number of BYU students go because it is interesting to learn about other cultures, and quite frankly, kind of fun to throw chalk at each other and to see the ceremony take place. I've placed pictures here, and on my scrapbook site, because it is really pretty cool to see. Obviously I don't know everything about the Hindu culture, so if you want to know for sure, you'd have to check it out and I apologize for getting anything wrong. http://heidisscrapbook.shutterfly.com/ <---- Link to more awesome pictures.
P.S. The name of my blog does make sense, because it is called the Holi Temple, and the Holi Festival of colors.

Spring Break!! Well... Sorta...

I personally don't get spring break... BOO! But my friends from home do, and they came to visit me a few weeks ago. Unfortunately they picked the coldest week of the month, but that is ok I guess.. We still had fun. I've also started a picture blog, since all I ever really do on here is post pictures, with all of my albums, it will probably only be interesting to my parents, but it will be an easy way for them to see all my pictures, and give them something to do if they are ever bored...
http://heidisscrapbook.shutterfly.com/ It's kinda cool, I haven't had a whole lot of time to mess with it yet, but all of my spring break pictures are on there. We went and saw some Olympic sites, and they LOVED the mountains, so if any of you are mountain lovers, check out those pictures, there are some fantastic ones on there. That site is kind of cool, you can order prints straight from it, or save them to your computer. I gave you a little teaser of some people ice fishing on the lake. Kinda interesting...This is from up the Provo canyon, for all you Provoers that are wandering where in the heck we took this. P.s. No editing was done. Awesome Huh? Also, I'm working on applying for the creative track in the Advertising program, and I am also applying for an internship for this summer that would pay $10 an hour for me to do Copywriting for them. I won't tell you what that is and make you look it up on your own if you don't know. :) Anyways, it feels like once I get my list down to a few last To-Dos, one hundred more pile up, such as a research paper :) for example. Oh well, Life is good. What more can I say? :)

Kevin's New Blog

I have included a link on the right, but Kevin has a new blog for his creative writing class, if anyone wants to check it out.
http://whatiexhale.blogspot.com/

Tribute to My Mom

Who is Your Hero? Brickfish

Get Out the Ice Skates

This is what our backyard looked like this morning. I wanted to put on some ice skates and go skating. When I tried to walk the dog I thought that he was going to pull me along after I fell on the ice and landed on my behind. Luckily I didn't fall and he didn't get the chance to pull me along. It was so slick that we couldn't walk very far or fast. (Sammy wanted to, though.) The snow is melting, but the ice is melting much more slowly. It would have been a great time to go skating. The temperature was in the 40's. It's a good thing I don't have ice skates I probably would have broken some part on my body trying to skate.