Wedding Bells and Hot [July] Nights

Yesterday was a whirl-wind day.  First was Camille and Cameron's wedding.  Melissa and I attended their sealing in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple, followed by a luncheon at the Blue Lemon.  Camille looked fantastic in her dress and I hope they are happy in their marital bliss. It was beautiful outside and the temple was packed.  We had to run to make it on time since we parked in the north forty but I am glad we could be there to support Camille.  During the ceremony there was a lot of great advice about putting trust into each other and cultivating your own family.  During the luncheon we had some tasty food and watched the cutting of the cake. 

Later that night Melissa and I headed to see the one and only Neil Diamond.  He may  be 71 years old but he still knows how to put on a fun (and sparkly) show.  My favorite performances were Forever in Blue Jeans, I'm a Believer (which started out the slow ballad version and then went rock and roll which was awesome), and  Sweet Caroline.  Sweet Caroline ended up being hilarious though as we cheered at the end so he played it again.  and again.  and again.  And then he had the audience sing it.  wow.   When Neil announced that his first concert in Utah had been in 1977 I laughed and said, " Half of these people were at that concert and another portion was probably concieved there!"  We had a blast people watching, dancing, and singing along.

I heart Utah.

Yesterday was Pioneer Day in Utah.  It is a celebration of all things Utah, the founding of our state, and an excuse to repeat all typical 4th of July activities.

I had the weekend and holiday off so I started out my celebrations early by heading up to Bear Lake on Saturday with Kristin.  Of course I am crispy red and of course we had to grab some raspberry goodness while in town.  It's like a law or something to get a raspberry shake while in town.  We spent our day at North Shore and it was a great day, heading out just as clouds threatened to roll in.

Sunday I helped teach the Family History class where we searched for a guys ancestors from the 1800's.  What's more pioneer related than that.  We did find some great info to get him on his way.  Then I made some tasty Oatmeal chip cookies and Utah Scones.

Monday was spent scrapbooking and then it was the big day Tuesday!  Melissa, Anna, and I headed to the Days of '47 parade where President Henry B. Eyring was the grand marshall.  The Murray float (my mom had to help design as part of her Murray Arts board duties) won the Brigham Young award.  My favorite part was when the Polynesian Cultural Center had a float and all of their dancers in town from Hawaii.  It was really entertaining.

That afternoon my sister's and I took the dogs up for a mini-hiki on the Bonneville Shoreline trail.  It was hot but had a great view.  Afterwards we grabbed some early dinner at Utah's own Artic Circle, inventor of the Fry Sauce, we love so much (original fry sauce is just ketchup and mayo...none of this pickle/thousand island-ish stuff). 

Laura, Brynn, and I headed to Liberty park for our usual weirdo people watching and navajo fry bread extravaganza before enjoying the fireworks.  They must have accidently set a whole bunch off together because they were kind of short, but still entertaining.

It was a great way to celebrate Utah, because This Is The Place!

My Friends and Family Team

Love the friends and family team!

The Returned crew...me, Justin, Britnie, and Sophanit.  Grateful I could be here with them again.

What a wonderful team and time we had!

“Most people are like you and me, or the people across the street or around the world from you and me. Just like you and me, their hearts tell them that somewhere, somehow, they can make a positive difference in the world. ”

William Baker

Mom's Guesthouse and Going home.

We stayed at a place called Mom's Guesthouse in Siem Reap this year.  Chi was the owner and was a wonderful help and resource for us.  He also smiled a lot!  Tiffany was my roommate and we had an interesting time trying not to flood the bathroom since there wasn't a shower curtain.  For breakfast we had continental breakfast of eggs, a baguette, and various fruit.  One day they decided to mix it up with some sort of chicken sandwhich....It was an adventure.  Eventually we mixed our fruit with shakes or chocolate crepes from down the street.  Every day they would bring us lunch in the village which was actually pretty tasty most of the time.  They also had an awesome pool where we held our final meeting.  At the final meeting I won the Madam Pomfrey award, which made me pretty happy.

Chi and the guesthouse

our continental breakfast

my roommate Tiffany



our sweet pool

me, JJ, Isabel, Jayne, and Rin

Across the street was our Laundry service, it was $2.00/kg for 1 day service and had a sumo wrestler advertising on the front...he doesn't have much laundrey to do that is for sure!  We had 2 tuk-tuk drivers that took us everywhere and a photo shop down the street on one side that was super cheap, and the Aspara market up the street where we loved to shop.  Also down the street was my favorite fence from last year and I was glad to finally get a picture of it.  It was a iron working of "Imagine" by the John Lennon. 

one of our faithful tuk-tuk drivers

 

Heading home was bittersweet because we had a LONG LONG commute ahead of us. In Korea we slept most of the time and I made an ugly craft at the cultural center.  In Tokyo we had just enough time to grab some McDonalds and board our next plane. A Monk flew with us from Cambodia to LA which was kind of fun, it was interesting to see that other than the orange robes, he was a lot like us...sleeping on benches, taking pictures, and eating McDonalds. In LA we saw Paul Millsap, Derek Favors, and other basketball players and Scarlett Johannsen, which kept us entertained.  It was a stressful trip for all of us in LA with constantly changing and overbooked flights but we eventually all made it home.

Tokyo

in LA with Paul Millsap

Saying Farewell the Peak Sneng.

Our time at the Primary school seemed so short this year (it was shorter, but it seemed to go by much faster).  Our last couple of days were spent wrapping up painting on the gate, micro-enterprises, a few last water filters and just playing with the children.

On our last day in the village we had our regular closing ceremonies, ate lunch, and played.  Well actually we danced more than we played.  The village leaders had set up a HUGE speaker system and it was a giant crazy dance party.  My cute girl who liked to pick all of the glitter off of me grabbed my hand and dragged me around the whole school, showing me everything she could that we had helped do.  We sat in the new desks, looked at the hanging garden, touched the dry paint and had a nice time enjoying each others company with no words, just moments. 

For closing ceremonies we presented a scrapbook to the principle of all of the children and activities we had accomplished while there (a scrapbook which I had to finish glueing together while a drunk lady thought she would help...it was pretty funny, good thing I love to scrapbook!!), and some nice speeches were made.  The older kids sang some songs for us, and Jay's recorder class played us all a song.  Then some of our group danced to Justin Bieber's, "All Around The World"  which was a huge hit!  They love Biber, J-Lo, and Pitbull over there, even when they don't understand what the words really mean (a moment with Vichney was funny when she asked what Pitbull was talking about and was scandalized when I explained that most hip-hop songs are about sex or drugs). 

The Rotary club brought lunch to all of the children.  They were just simple sandwhiches and as we passed them out the children were grateful and excited.  My favorite moment was after everyone had one, they immediately got up and scurried to the teams sides, eating as they sat in our laps, and clung to our hands.  The school gave  us all coconuts to drink which we happily shared with the kids (the coconut water can be so sour!), and we just enjoyed each others company.

Then the dance party and games began.  It was so fun to watch everyone just be silly and have a good time.  My sweet high school girls couldn't be there to say goodbye so they sent an older brother to deliever me a package and some letters. 

the "drunk lady"

Saying goodbye is always hard and leaving all of those smiling faces as they waved farewell was bittersweet. I will miss that village and those kids, and hope to go back and revisit again someday.