Grandma Brinkle

 My Father's mother passed away this morning at 1:45 in Tennessee. She was 76 years old.
Love you Grandma. You'll be missed! But I'm so glad that you have found rest and are with the rest of your family (Your mom, Donny, and I hope Jared gave you the biggest hug ever from me!!)

What I remember most about Grandma:
-her spitfire personality. She knew how to put her foot down and stand her ground.
-her home in Geneva. That trailer home was packed with more stuff a kid could explore through that it provided hours of opportunity and entertainment. And that was just on the inside! The grounds and woods were also a "magical land" of exploration. We found and fixed up a fort that my dad and uncles had built some time ago. I also used to throw big rocks into the ditch and watch them splash. I got in trouble with her for doing that...
-her home was also where Jason and I learned to paint ceramics. My mother still hangs the ornaments we made with Grandma on her tree.
-grandma could paint! She had a marvelous talent with a brush. I remember a few of her landscape artworks and a lot of her ceramics. I still have the ballerina and the teddy bear piggy bank and the mermaid jewelry box she painted for me. Not to mention every year I see the 25 Santas my mother was given for Christmas over time.
-Grandma loved her Soap Operas :) I remember sitting on her water bed with my cousin Amy and we watched a few with her while eating cookies we found in Papa's "secret" stash.
-painting wasn't her only talent. Cake making/decorating was also an art for her. I still remember the pink and purple Barbie doll dress cake I had when I was younger. I loved that cake. She made Jason and Holly's wedding cake too. It was beautiful.
-she could sing beautifully. She participated in her ward choirs and I got to see her sing there a few times.
-her dress of choice while at home was a "mu-mu" nightgown.
-she loved animals and had a myriad of them. The ones that I remember the most were all of her cats she had roaming around. My favorite was Calico. It looked like one of the stuffed animals I had in my collection. The other animal of hers that was most memorable was Ginger. She was a rascally little tea-cup pup that you'd step on if you weren't careful. But she could fit in our hands perfectly but be able to pick up a full size tennis ball all by herself. She loved Grandma too. I think Grandma had a bird aviary too. And a few stray bobcats also.
-I loved Christmases at her house. Our stockings were always chock full of goodies and we ALWAYS had our Orange at the bottom. Our gifts always seemed to be odd and as a kid I was stupid and didn't really appreciate them. Now I realize she was trying to help us appreciate things more ;) The best gift I remember getting and still have was a doll house from her that she had handmade and took the time to make it perfect. I had all the furniture for it right down to the fruit bowls. It had all been made or picked out by Grandma. I also still have the angel doll she gave me. It has. blonde hair and blue eyes. Grandma must have had a vision of who I'd marry and thought my posterity would look like this doll. I hope that's the case :)
-her attention to the precise detail was incredible.
-Grandma had unwavering faith. She always had a strong testimony of the Gospel that nobody could take away. She was always quoting some kind of scriptural verse :) and when she got fired up enough she'd sound like a cursing Southern Baptist preacher :)
-Grandma was SOUTHERN. What else need be said? :)
-I remember riding in the covered back of her tan Honda truck with Amy. I also remember sitting up front with Amy and being so jealous that she knew how to switch the gears and that Grandma would let her! :)
-I remember getting to spend one afternoon with her summer 2010 in UT and she finally got to meet my husband. Such a sweet time and memory. She was staying in SLC,UT with Gloria and so she took us around the block to show us the pretty flowers and the cemetery she liked to walk in. We took her to the Lion House for lunch and she really liked that.
-I "blame" Grandma for a portion of my conviction of Eternal families. She would say that she saw Jared in the Spirit World as well as her Donny (her son that passed away as an infant). I believed her. Some were unsure of how to take such a bold declaration of vision but I was young and open to it. I remember wishing with all my heart that I could see him too. Grandma said that Jared was at Jason's wedding and I remember being so angry that I couldn't go in and feel/see that too! :)
-I remember when Grandma and Papa went through the temple. I wasn't there but I knew that it made her sooo happy!
-Grandma will always be a part of me

Love you Grandma!!

Kartschner Caverns

Yesterday my parents and my aunt and uncle from Texas came into town to visit. They had wanted to see Kartschner Caverns and invited us to go along with them. This was such an awesome park! And I don't mean like, "whoa totally awesome dude!" I mean it in the real sense of the word: Awesome: Amazing, awe inspiring, wonderful, magnificent, beautiful (I could keep going.) It was just absolutely gorgeous. There are two caverns that you can see, The Big Room and the Rotunda/Throne Room. We took the Rotunda/Throne Room tour.

To start you off they give you a little back history of the area. I was about to type out what I remembered and had started when I decided to check myself on the actual website of Kartschner Caverns. I thought they said it so much more brilliantly than I did so I just used their words :)

     "It all began with a drop of water. A shallow inland sea covered this area 330 million years ago, depositing layers of sediment that eventually hardened into limestone. Millions of years later this Escabrosa limestone along with other rock layers uplifted to form the Whetstone Mountains. The Escabrosa limestone, due to a type of tremor or fault, down-dropped thousands of feet relative to the mountains above.
     Rainwater, made slightly acidic by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and soil, penetrated cracks in the down-dropped limestone block and slowly dissolved passages in it. Later, lowering groundwater levels left behind vast, air-filled rooms.
     Kartchner Caverns' wide variety of decorations, called “speleothems,” began forming drop by drop over the next 200,000 years.
     Water seeping from the surface dissolves minerals on its trip through the limestone. Once it reaches the cave, the trapped carbon dioxide escapes from the water. No longer able to hold the dissolved calcite, the drop deposits its tiny mineral load. Over time, these minerals have created the beautiful speleothems and variety of colors found in the cave. Kartchner Caverns is a “living” cave; the formations are still growing!" - (http://azstateparks.com/Parks/KACA/index.html)

See? So much smarter sounding than I could've ever done :)

The tour guides said that the founders of the cave, Gary Tenen and Randy Tufts, had discovered the caves in 1974. They were so amazed by it and it's condition that they wanted to take great lengths in preserving it. They kept it a secret for 14 years before it was made into a state park!

When you get to the entrance of the cave you come to a large steel door. They air lock the entrance to the caverns so that the wet and humid atmosphere and living ecosystem inside isn't affected by the dry AZ atmosphere outside. You go through 3 of these doors before finally entering the actual cave. The tour guide also said that the nice smoothly laid paths you walk on were built linearly (as they went) so as not to destroy the caverns. This is a picture of the cave as you first walk down the dynamited man-made hallway through the air lock doors:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramblingrovers/1865774952/

The first room that you walk into is the Rotunda Room. We couldn't take any pictures inside but try to imagine this with me. The very first part of the room that you walk into is dizzying. Overhead is about 6 feet above you and it's at an angle so you feel like it's coming right at you! This is the only part where it felt like this though and after a quick little prayer to stop my heart beating faster than it should I was fine the rest of the way. The further we walked in the more it opened up. The "ceiling" still slanted but we walked down so it got farther away from your head and therefore felt more opened up. I forgot all about feeling "caved in." Not to mention I was loving all the beautiful formations and colors we were looking at! Like these:

http://azstateparks.com/parks/KACA/KACA_images/KACA_G_20.jpg

 They're called "Soda Straws." They're formed by the downward dripping water. They're hollow inside and when the water drips off of them it leaves deposits which is how these things grow! Or look at these stalactites and stalagmites!:

http://www.sierravistasuites.com/media/images/photo_gallery/photos/kartchner_caverns.jpg

These pictures don't do this place justice though. You must see these things in person! The whole time I was thinking of the Creation. I thought about standing next to the Savior and just going "Oooo I like that one. That's pretty!" Really cheesy I know...but I was just so grateful for the beautiful creations that we have in this world. I could've stayed there a lot longer and admired. I could've just sat there and enjoyed the silence with the water dripping in the background, basking in the beauty of the Lord's artwork. :)

The Throne Room was the last room we went into. They prep you for this one though because there's this magnificent structure in the middle of it called the Kubla Khan.

http://qtvr.arizona.edu/vrs/southwest/kartchner/kartchner_throne.jpg

It's kind of hard to see in the above picture because it's a panoramic shot but on the far right is where we came out of the Rotunda Room through Imaginary Pass. Then we went up that walk way on the right and got front row seats of that beautiful formation on the left. Don't let this small picture fool you. That formation is almost as tall as a 5 story building!

http://www.sierravistasuites.com/media/images/photos/destination/kartchner_caverns2.jpg

These are the seats that we sat on and watched the unveiling of Kubla Khan. They had lights go on and off that showed different parts of the formation and room. It was GORGEOUS!

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2015/2337849130_922e46791b_z.jpg?zz=1

I will happily go back and do this again. I want to see The Big Room!
There's also more information (like how much construction materials they used for making the walkways and such, park history and other facts) at: http://azstateparks.com/Parks/KACA/index.html.

After coming out of the caverns we went into the little gift shop area and looked around. We also looked at the booths they had set up going over everything we'd learned inside the caverns. They also had a short film we watched about the founders and the making of Kartschner Caverns.

They had set up a little area highlighting the fact that the cave explorers had to crawl through some pretty tight spaces to get around the cave so they had 3 different holes that people could squeeze through. It was fun to try :)

ReceptionX

I was trying to think of a really cool title for this blog post, at 7:30 at night, that is where my creativity got me. Oh well.

Anyway, I titled it as such because I wanted to share that I passed my X-ray Certification test! I can take x-rays now for work. I'm so excited. I took them all day today! I'm also learning how to do some assisting so that I can fully take care of the patients that want to start Orthodontic treatment. Meaning, I would take their "before" pictures, molds of their teeth, and their other x-ray. I'm excited to learn new things. I am really lucky to have the people that I work with too because they are so willing to help me learn.

The main thing that I do right now is take these: the Panoramic X-ray

I also take these: the Cepholametric X-ray

It is sooo fun for me to do this :) I loved the x-ray part of my anatomy class at BYU too. It's so fun!
Today I started learning how to take records which are the "before" photos, bite registration and impressions. I only learned the first too though right now.

"Before" pictures are ones like these (only this is an "after" really...look at how pretty they are!):

I've also learned how to do some adjustments on patients which is to change their bands that go around their brackets. We call these O-ties:

They go in the mouth like this:

Being able to learn and do new things at work has make me like my job even more. It's really a lot of fun!

Belated Blog Postings

I do have good excuses for not blogging until week 3 of January I promise. But that'll come later. Let's just jump right in to last year and post about Christmas and New Years :)

It was an odd year so we spend Christmas with the Halls and New Years with the Brinkles. I was thinking that we'd get a white Christmas in northern Utah but such was not the case. :( That's okay though - I'd rather not have snowy roads. Travel was really easy.

When Kevin picked us up at the airport we went and had breakfast (we arrived early which means we left PHX super early), ran a few errands and then he took us to Brigham City to see the temple. It's coming along beautifully! We're excited that it's supposed to be finished this year :)

The next day I suggested that James and I go down and visit BYU for fun. I wanted to show him the new landscaping they had done on the south side of campus (previous post has pictures - it's when I went to see Erika). We enjoyed walking around and it was warm! Well, not like short-sleeve weather but we were sweating in our jackets! It was December! Amazing...Anyways, as we were walking around we came to a spot of landscaping that was near and dear to our hearts:

Along the way to Provo we stopped at our most favorite spot ever:

That night the Beasley Bunch joined us and then the Michael Hall family and the Gavin Hall families. It was so great to see everyone. An early Christmas present was given to Kevin and Debra from Gavin and Katie - the news of a 13th grandchild! Yay for Katie and Gavin!

Christmas Eve we went and saw the movie Arthur Christmas. It was really cute - different from what I'd expected but nonetheless very cute. We then had dinner that evening with Scott and Raquelle Boehme and their family. It was a "souper" meal :)

Christmas came on Sunday, so with Kevin and Debra's ward starting at 9am, Christmas also came very early in the morning :)

 But oh the Christmas Miracles that awaited them! So many goodies!

Uh oh...James got coal...

Funny though, the coal tasted like chocolate...

INSIGHT BOWL TICKETS!! EEE!! OU vs Iowa! Boomer!!!

  After Christmas present opening we had breakfast and got ready for Sacrament Meeting. We clean up nice don't we?

 After Church we came home and got us ready for going to the Cabin! We had to see snow sometime this vacation right? We played up there for 3 days (25th-27th). The 26th was dedicated solely to sledding :) Fun fun fun!

 

 When not sledding we enjoyed eating yummy cinnamon rolls, drinking hot chocolate, coloring,

 Learning to share,

 Scaring the mothers,

 Learning new games,

 And just being kids :)

Until next time Cabin/Bear Lake!

 And a good Christmas was had by all :)

James and I returned to sunny AZ on the 28th to spend time with the Brinkles.
On the 29th we went here:

www.ldschurchtemples.com

Later that eventide, my little brother, Jordan, took us to a really cool place called "Jump Street." It's an indoor trampoline arena. It was so fun! These pictures aren't of us, I got them off the internet. I couldn't take a camera onto the trampolines if I tried. I saw some kids with their cell phones out there though. They're weren't jumping though. Jump or text? Such a hard choice...anyways, here's what it looked like inside:

www.8coupons.com

www.phoenxidateideas.com

www.tripadvisor.com

I was hurting the next day though...gotta get out more often I guess...

Then, we saved the best activity for last (literally too-the 30th of December! Can't get any more "last" than that!) James got me tickets to the college Insight Bowl where the awesome Sooners of the University of Oklahoma was playing Iowa at Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix. It was my first time seeing the Sooners play a live game. I almost got to see them on my mission but wasn't able to. So I was very excited :) All of my family wore something red or crimson, James bought his shirt there. For Christmas he got me an OU hoodie just for me to wear to the game :) Jordan, however, had to play devil's advocate and bought an Iowa shirt at the game. Too bad though...Yellow was an unlucky color that night! Boomer!! Sooner!! We won. Hands down. No question. Like we would lose...ha!

 

Ran into LaRee! She is a friend from the OU student ward where I served the last 5 months of my mission!

They had parachute jumpers fly in for the game opener. It was so cool! You can just barely make this one out. He's still way above our heads. He's the dot in the lower half of the picture.

Here he is coming in for his landing.

My camera is filthy but you can barely make the next one out. He's the small white dot that is between the far left and center lighting, just above the edge of the stands.

Safely landed.

It cot perdy chilly near the end of the game.

You can tell who's winning the game at this point!

Touch down Sooners!!!

And it seems that we have an AZ holiday tradition of playing Kube. Such nice weather though, why waste the day!

Best Picture award - Cutest dog ever!!

A close tie ;)

Victory dance!

 2011 was a very productive year. James and I went on 4 vacations (Seattle, Disneyland, Bear Lake and New York City), we got Boomer, I finished a lot of sewing projects (2 car seat tents, a quilt, 2 pillow cases, 2 rag dolls, a blanket for Boomer, and 12 ornaments!), saw 2 Broadway productions (Wicked and The Lion King), finished the Book of Mormon, New Testament and Conference Ensign, I read 20 books, James read 15 (I think), James is about 80-90% finished with his Thesis,  I became a somewhat part-time worker but gained a new title at work and gained some experience assisting and x-ray taking, Boomer past his Puppy Training class with flying colors, we saw 3 live sports games: The Diamondbacks baseball game, the AWESOME 3 Grand Slam Yankee's game, and the Insight Bowl game, James turned 30, I lost 16 pounds, James gained 5,  and we did all that without getting a speeding ticket! :) And we possibly did more too. I can't remember it all!

We've been so blessed this year as we've been able to overcome some of our stumbling blocks, had our testimonies strengthened and been kept safe and sound. We're so very grateful for the blessings we have in our life: Family, friends, the Gospel - all the important things, and then the temporal blessings that we've been given. I hope that 2012 continues to bless us with happiness and learning and growth.

Happy New Year!