June 25th

Today anniversary of many things I'm sure, including the death of MJ. 

As cool as MJ was, I am going focus on one of the events that actually impacted my life.

Brady returned from him Mexican mission on June 25, 2010.

He served in the Mexico City East mission from 2008-2010.

It is so weird to think he has finally been home as long as he was gone.

I must say that these last two years went by WAY faster compared to the two years he was gone. 

Thank goodness for that. 

It really seems like just yesterday I was standing in the St. George airport waiting for him to come home {getting harassed by everyone that was there}, and forcing Brady to take the extremely awkward picture shown below.

{I have chosen to not be offended that I was clearly more excited to be reunited- even my dad and brother look more excited then Brady in this picture}

On a more serious note, I am so glad that I am married to a man that made the decision to serve a faithful, two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

He rocks.

Cruisin'

To celebrate my college graduation {finally!} and one year of marriage we decided to kick off the summer by cruising down to Mexico. 

During the semester I would be at school from like one in the afternoon {sue me, I'm not a morning person} to nine at night and Brady would go to school before I woke up and come home around five. Basically, we never got to see each other. 

 It was so nice to get out of Provo and spend some quality time together, just the two of us.

Our activities consisted of...

hanging by the pool

playing mini-golf on the ship

jet skiing and snorkeling in Cabo

looking at pretty views

taking walks around the ports...

...and on the beach

zip lining through the jungle in Puerto Vallarta 

 and lastly, eating MASS AMOUNTS of food, especially chocolate frozen yogurt {for me} and chocolate/vanilla twist frozen yogurt {for Brady}.

Some of our interesting experiences consisted of::

-our dinner table teaching us how to take a water bottle lid off without breaking the seal so we would know how to sneak alcohol onto the ship 

-seeing these signs around every corner {I decided to leave this picture off facebook, but since this is a journal I just had to include it here because it was the cause of at least 50% of our laughter during the vacation}:

-watching the hairy chest contest {sorry, I know everyone is DYING to see a picture, but the only one I took was even more inappropriate than the sign above}

-and getting asked if we wanted to get high in a super creepy voice from at least fifteen Mexican men after we said no to all of the other activities they offered us.

It really was a magical vacation.

KONY 2012

Since the KONY 2012 campaign has been flooding my facebook newsfeed I decided I should probably learn more about it. 

Pro KONY 2012

HERE is an article that is more critical of KONY 2012. 

After looking at both, I tend to agree with the article. I am by no means saying that Joseph Kony is not an evil man doing horrible things, but this article does make some very good points.

{disclaimer: I have not done tons of research on the topic}

I think that this movement is more about curing the symptom than fixing the cause.

I think that eliminating one man will not solve the problem, the problem is much deeper and more complex than that. 

Lastly, I think that terrible things are happening to children in Uganda. I just don't know that this is the answer.

Places

Growing up overseas led to a lot of traveling in my younger years. Now traveling is in my blood. Here are some places that I am dying to go someday (not in any specific order)...

Paris, France

Thanks to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants- Greece

Australia

This is a little more embarrassing to admit, but I have been dying to go here since watching Holiday in the Sun, my all time favorite Mary-Kate and Ashley movie.-Atlantis Hotel, Bahamas

China- due to my current enrollment in Chinese Politics, and my love for Mulan.

Maldives- I googled "top ten beaches" and this was number one on most of the lists, so I put in on mine!

Because of the whole growing up in another country thing, Brady has never seen where I spent the majority of my childhood. I would LOVE to take him sometime- Saudi Arabia.


The moral of this list is that I should stop being so susceptible to the places in movies.