A Much Needed Break

Greg and I went on our first "official" date in a while!! Although it was very random and thrown together at the last minute, we had a ton of fun! To start out our date we bought a pizza and ate it at one of the parks here in Provo. Luckily it has been warm lately so we had beautiful warm weather. Afterward we drove to the Nicklecade and had a lot of fun challenging each other to all sorts of games. In the end I won :) But not by much!
We then took a trip to Coldstone for some delicious ice cream! (Greg's favorite thing to eat!) Right after we finally got to watch the new Batman movie! We both loved it. Greg left the movie theater feeling like Batman.
It was such a fun and needed night. Both of us have been stressed with school, especially Greg, and it was nice to have an evening where school did not matter.
I am a fan of date nights!

Volleyball Time

I want to congratulate my amazing sister Katelyn on finishing her senior year of volleyball! Greg and I were able to go watch her play in her last state tournament. She played very well and I could not be more proud! She did a great job at keeping her team together and put all her effort out there. I know the feeling of being in such a stressful situation, but it is such a great experience.
It was fun to listen to Greg try to figure out the rules of volleyball! He came up with his own position names for each of the players so he could understand what was going on! Gotta love him!

Clarissa Jane Carrio

So I am a little late on this post, but it is not any less important! We have a new adorable member of the Pagel family! Clarissa Jane was born on July 18! She is such a cute baby! Because they live in Texas we have not seen her in person yet. :( Every time Greg and I skype with his sister Leslie and Clarissa, we get more and more excited to meet her. Luckily we get to see her during Thanksgiving! :) It has been a lot of fun to receive pictures in the mail and on our phones! She looks beautiful just like her mom!
We cannot wait to see her soon!

Pirate Donuts!

Speaking of pirate treasure....I am not sure what got into us, but Courtney, Jess and I decided that it would be a good idea to dress like pirates and go stand in line at Krispy Kreme on National Talk Like a Pirate Day. If you dressed like a pirate they gave you a free dozen glazed donuts. How could I pass that up? Although we stood in line for over 3 hours....(Ya I know...CRAZY!!) it was definitely worth it! Now I can say that I have stood in line for donuts.

 Court & Jess all dressed up!

 Yes I am a Pirate!

 The line once we got inside...It was about this long outside of the building too!

Pirate Treasure

I have the opportunity every so often to babysit 3 of the cutest kids in the world! The last time I was able to go over, my cousin Jameson decided that he wanted to dress up like a pirate and have a treasure hunt. We got a treasure chest with fake coins in it. We took turns hiding the chest and sending the others to find it! It was a lot of fun! It is always a fun and exciting adventure to hang out with the Jones'. Love them!!

We love Mother Nature!

Over Labor Day weekend we we able to take a trip up North to Yellowstone National Park. It was a great weekend. My only request for my birthday weekend was to get away from the BYU bubble, and my wish came true! I think we picked one of the most popular weekends to be in Yellowstone, but we had an amazing time. Luckily we were smart enough to reserve a campsite about a month before our trip, otherwise we would not have had anywhere to say!
During our trip we had the opportunity to go to the Playmill Theater and watch Annie Get Your Gun! What a fun production! We laughed a lot, and are definitely going to try to go back soon.
The first night was a little rough. We got back to our campsite after the play, and it was pouring rain. Our fire pit was a huge puddle so we didn't get to cook dinner. After a cold and wet night of sleeping on the ground, we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning with a few elk right outside our tent.
We were able to enjoy a second day full of hiking, watching Old Faithful, and just enjoying Mother Nature! Greg decided to hike up a little trail that went up the side of a hill. We climbed up and were graced by a beautiful view of a very colorful hot pool.
That night as the sun was setting we walked down to the river by our campsite and were able to enjoy the moment watching a gorgeous elk and a beautiful sunset.

It was a much needed trip before we both had to focus everything on school. I think both Greg and I agreed that we need to have an annual Yellowstone trip.

Excited to start our adventure

 Waiting for "Annie Get Your Gun" to start

 By one of the geysers at Yellowstone

We had to take our feet picture!! (See previous post for explanation) 

The gorgeous view from our hike up the mountain!! 

I doubted at first, but Greg's idea was definitely a good one! :) 

We left our mark by the waterfall! 

Yum!! Tinfoil dinners! I love camping food!

My Night in Shining Armor

Yesterday I had a horrible morning. I woke up with a really bad pain in my left side. I did not want to get out of bed it hurt so bad. At first Greg was super nervous that my appendix had erupted. Thankfully we remembered that your appendix is on your right side, not left which was a huge relief for me. I tried to see if it would get any better, but it only got worse. At one point I fell to the floor bawling because it hurt so bad. Luckily a few minutes after that the pain started to go away. We are not really sure what was wrong. We think it might have been a kidney stone...whatever it was I am hoping that it never comes back.

Well while I was in bed and on the floor crying, poor Greg was doing everything he could to research my symptoms to see if he could figure out what was wrong. When he got home from work last night he surprised me with flowers.

I am so glad that I have someone who is willing to do anything for me and make sure I am as happy as I can be. I have the greatest husband in the world.

Race Time

So the adorable little boy, Joey, that lives above us has been eyeing Greg's remote control car for months. Every time he sees it he asks when we are going to take him with us to race it. Finally on Friday we got it out. We took Joey with us to a field by our apartment and let him help Greg drive the car. It was so fun to see Joey get more and more excited as we walked to the field. As Greg showed him how to start the car and control the speed, his smile got so big! It was a lot of fun for us to be able to watch Joey have such a great time. After we raced the car for a little while we played on the playground. We went down the slides, played in the sand, and had a lot of fun. It was a great afternoon and Greg and I cant wait to do it again. 

Greg and Joey starting the car 

Ready to go! 

Having fun on the playground 

Joey wanted to take a picture of us!

Wednesday Walk

Yesterday Greg had the day off (I love Wednesdays for that reason!!) We decided to take a walk on the Provo River trail. It was so nice to get out of our apartment and be in "nature". Well at least it feels more like nature than it does walking up and down the streets of Provo. It was so nice to just walk and talk and have some time to ourselves laughing and having fun! We stopped by the river and enjoyed watching the fish, until Greg decided to throw a rock in the water to scare them. It was fun to throw rocks, splash each other, and enjoy the world around us.

While sitting by the river we decided to start something that is a little random, but it is going to be fun. We have decided to take a picture of our feet during our adventures in the future. So here is the start of our future tradition. I hope you enjoy following all of our adventures. 

Sis. Pagel

Well the day finally came. Amanda is officially Sis. Pagel! We met up everyone and ate lunch at the Creamery together before the time came to send her off. The entire time Amanda just kept saying how ready she was to go. She gave up her cell phone without any problem :) After lunch we took pictures, sent Ben back to EFY, we headed off to the MTC. Amanda was really excited until we turned the corner into the MTC. She quickly turned her head and you could see the overwhelmed and nervous look on her face. The whole process happens very quickly. We pulled up to the curb and almost immediately some missionaries were there to grab her suitcases and lead her on her way. There was enough time for everyone to give her a quick hug and then send her on her way. Amazingly no one cried! I was impressed. We are all very excited for her and know that she is going to be a great missionary. We cant wait to hear about all of her experiences.

What a great next 18 months it is going to be for her!!

 Elders helping with her bag

 Hugging Dad

 Sibling Love!

 Nothing more special than the bond a Mother and Daughter have!

Headed off to start the next chapter in her life!

Perfect Timing

Normally Monday nights are not super exciting for me since Greg is at work, but tonight I decided to have my own FHE. After I got home tonight from babysitting my cousins, I just got a feeling that I needed to go to the temple. Once I pulled up, I was only planning on staying a couple minutes so I didn't get out of the car. After sitting for about 5 minutes I was ready to start the car and head home to watch the Olympics. Instead for some reason I didnt. I got out of the car and sat on the grass. I could see the temple and a beautiful sunset. I sat thinking about life and realized that I have been a little stressed. While I was sitting in front of a beautiful sky, my Father in Heaven found just the right way to communicate with me exactly what I needed. It amazes me how in tune he is with my life. I know that he is always there for me, but it is days like today that remind you just how much he loves me. 

I am so grateful to have the faith and knowledge that I do. I do not know what I would do without my Heavenly Father looking out for me! I am a very lucky girl! 

Called to Serve

Greg and I had the opportunity to go to Denver this past weekend to support his sister Amanda who leaves for the MTC on Wednesday! It was so fun to spend the weekend with the Pagel family! We played fruit baseball, bocce, went shopping, watched the Olympic opening ceremonies. I could not ask to be part of a better family, other than my Parkin side of course!

The best part of the weekend though was listening to Amanda speak in church on Sunday. I think everyone in the building who was listening got emotional. It was fun to listen to her testimony, and realize just how great of a missionary she is going to be. We are very excited to watch her as she learns and grows during her next 18 month journey in San Diego. GOOD LUCK AMANDA!!

"Good Thoughts" Follow Up

So I have been working on my challenge for two weeks now. Thinking only good thoughts about everyone was not an easy task. I was not perfect, but I did learn a lot from this challenge. At first it was really hard to consciously find when negative thoughts entered my mind. The more I tried the better I did. At first it was really hard to force myself to think of positive thoughts to replace my negative. Although, as soon as I changed my attitude I found it so much easier to find the positive. It is so much easier to find good attributes in people now. This has been a great challenge for me. I definitely have a lot more work to do, but it has been a good journey so far. I highly reccommend this challenge to everyone!

America Day!

For the 4th of July we had a crazy day! We woke up early to go get a spot to watch the parade. We got a front row seat in the shade, well for the first half. We enjoyed all the old cars and parade balloons. One of my favorite floats was the Madagascar float. We enjoyed watching all of the excitement and craziness.
We went to the carnival and were able to get free Dryer's ice cream, which Greg was extremely excited about! We also went into a museum and saw the only working Gutenberg printing press in the world.
The best part of the day was having a bbq at our apartment. It was the first company we had over. We had some friends from our old ward over to hang out and party. Even though we had some stress with the grill and not the best burgers, it was a lot of fun to be with people we enjoy being around. After dinner we went and camped out to watch fireworks! We played phase 10 and enjoyed the spirit of the holiday!

GO AMERICA!!

Waiting for the parade to start

 Greg's favorite car from the parade

 The best balloons!!! 

Firework time!

Good Thoughts

So today at church a woman got up to bear her testimony and started talking about President Uchtdorf's talk in the last general conference about judging others. When I got home the first thing I did was listen to that talk again. Such amazing words. I started thinking about my life and wondered how often I tend to pass judgments on others without even stopping to think about what I am doing. I know this happens to me every day, multiple times a day. I get so caught up in what I think is right or what I think, I don't even stop to wonder why the person might be acting that way. I know that there have been multiple times when I act a certain way, or do certain things just because I am having a bad day or need some help. Instead of immediately judging someone I need to make sure I do as President Uchtdorf said and look at them as a son or daughter of God.
I also found a Mormon Message about this same topic. It was from one of President Monson's talks. He told a story about a lady who kept looking out her window at her neighbor hanging up her laundry. Day after day she judged her because her laundry was not clean. She wondered how she did not get taught how to clean. One morning she looks out the window and her neighbors laundry was clean. Then her husband told her that he had got up early that morning and washed their windows. How often do I cloud my own judgment? How often do I only see what I want to see, instead of what really is?
My goal this week is to do my best to think of only good things about others. When I think a negative thought I will have to come up with two good thoughts to replace it. I am excited to see how my outlook on others changes!
I will check in at the end of the week!

Wish Me Luck!

New Start!!

Welcome to the Pagel family blog!! Greg and I are so excited for our lives together, and cannot wait to see what is in store for us on this adventure! It is going to be a crazy and fun road, but full of fun and adventure.