a little giveaway

feeling lucky?

head on over to 

{sassy blossoms}

to enter the awesome giveaway!

hurry, giveaway ends tuesday, august 31st!

because i grew up a ute fan

i applied to the u way back in the day and got accepted

but going to usu just felt... right

it was a good choice.  i still say that being a student 8 years later.

but my family (immediate and extended) are all still die-hard ute fans

i even have a cousin who is playing on the football team this year.

so a ute onesie only seemed fitting

{find it here}

in love. part deux

after reading the comments from my last post (especially katie's, haha), i found it necessary to do a "part two" of my "in love" series.

this is josh at last week's impromptu bear lake trip.

just like the cute grandma styled bedroom in the previous post,

this boy also makes my heart go pitter patter

especially when he buys me a cute new ruffly apron in hopes to entice me to spend more time in the kitchen, and when i do attempt to recreate greg cox's caramel brownies and they fail miserably, he still eats the entire pan.  now that's love.

more on our fun summer adventures... but not until i finish my capstone (thesis) paper

my goal was to have it done by the end of the summer. 

and i'm determined to stick to this goal.

well, summer ends in a week and i started working on it about 8 hours ago.

in love

{via}

when i saw this room, my heart went pitter patter.

i love everything about it.... the colors, the antique accents... and especially the headboard!

i will be heading to the antique store this week to scout out some doors.

wish me luck!

'tis the season

football and basketball season are just around the corner...

we are so excited!

to commemorate such a special time of the year, i have some sports themed onesies in the works

a university of utah onesie will be coming soon.

available at

{sassy blossoms}

day 2- coba

**i'm sure there will be way more information in this post than anyone really wants to read, so you have my permission to just look at the pictures**

day 2 (thursday june 10th) was a busy day.

my dad wanted us to see some mayan ruins while we were in the mayan riviera.

makes sense, right?

he actually found an lds tour guide named alma who provides a variety of tours to the various ruins throughout the yucatan.  

alma was amazing- she is lds, from mexico city, and part mayan.  

i can't even tell you how much i learned from her.

she had an amazing testimony of the book of mormon.

she knew so much about the mayan history, archeology, and anthropology.

she brought the stories in the book of mormon to life--

that was a real first for me.

if you ever travel to the mayan riviera- book a tour with her or her family. holy moly.  you will leave a much more knowledgeable person with a desire to dive into the book of mormon and learn even more.  i know i won't even come close to mentioning all the things i learned about the parallelisms between the book of mormon stories and the mayan civilizations, but i will do my very best to give you a little intro and you can go to mexico and get the full experience in person :)

almaldstours.us

the tour started bright and early (7am).  we were picked up and drove about 45 minutes to coba. 

my dad chose coba over tulum or chichen itza because it's not as excavated or reconstructed as the others, it has the highest point in all of the yucatan, you can actually climb the largest structure, the ruins are located throughout the jungle, and because you can rent bicycles and ride through the canopies to keep cool :)

 the civilization of coba dates back to 600-900 a.d. and there were an estimated 100,000 people living in its domain.

these are the rickety bikes we rented for the day.  we were so grateful to have them!  not only did they keep us from walking all over the jungle, but they kept us cool and were fun to race!

one of the first things we stopped to see are the ball courts.  the ball game played an important roll in mayan society and most cities had a ball court, which is basically a corridor of two stoned walls.  the game was played between two teams, using only their hips and elbows to get a rubber ball through a hoop.  there are inscriptions and other pieces of art to show that human sacrifice was part of the game.  

this is what we looked like for most of our excursion- everyone huddled around alma as she related the history of the mayan culture and civilizations to the stories of the nephites and lamanites in 3 nephi.  here, she showed us various stelas.  stelas are free-standing stone slabs with engravings on them.  

she then told us about stela #5 which is nicknamed "the tree of life stela".  the stela was found in 1941 and about 10 years later, m. wells jakeman (chairman of archaeology at byu) created a drawing and interpreted the stone as representing "lehi's dream".  the area where the stela was found was at the crossroads of america- an area where it is believed lehi first landed.  the stela is believed to show the tree of life which represents the love of God, happiness, and eternal life; the river representing the barrier of evil between people and happiness; the rod of iron represents the word of God; lehi is believed to be on the left side of the tree, preaching the word of God to his family; sariah is behind him, supporting him; laman and lemuel both have their backs turned to him; and nephi is believed to be to the right of the tree, heading the words of his father.

if you know the story of the tree of life, it is absolutely amazing to see this stela, which is believed to have been carved between 300-100 b.c.  the timing fits to what we believe is the time that lehi brings his family across the ocean to the americas.

the nohoc mul pyramid is the tallest structure in the yucatan at just over 126 feet.  there are 120 steep stairs you can climb to get to the very top.  the view from the top is absolutely amazing- you can see over the jungle canopy for miles and there are unexcavated temple mounts peeking above the trees.

that engraving above the door opening is a carving of the mayan god, the "feathered serpent".  they called it that because it had the ability to live on land and in the heavens.

alma finished the tour by sharing a beautiful testimony on the importance of scripture study in the book of mormon, temple work, and the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  

she then sang us a song from the children's songbook and the spirit was so strong.

How could the Father tell the world of love and tenderness?

He sent his Son, a newborn babe, with peace and holiness.

How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go?
He sent his Son to walk with men on earth that we may know.

How could the Father tell the world of sacrifice, of death?
He sent his Son to die for us and rise with living breath.

What does the Father ask of us?
What do the scriptures say?
Have faith, have hope, live like his Son,
Help others on their way.

What does he ask?
Live like his Son.

after spending a few hours at coba, we decided it was time for some grub.  alma took us to a local restaurant where we had a buffet style lunch.  the food was delicious (chicken, pork, fruit, veggies) and the homemade horchata was to die for.  we also gulped down some ice cold coca-cola light.  

after lunch, alma took us to a local cenote.  a cenote is an underground body of water, a sinkhole that was essential to the mayan's survival.  how do you get to the cenote?  you enter through a narrow hole and steep steps that the mayans carved themselves.   the water is a blue green color of unknown depths and there are stalactites of blood red limestone above.  this cenote was absolutely amazing and is a sight that pictures will never do justice.  i have a video of us playing in the water, but that will have to be uploaded at a later time.

that night we had reservations to the seafood restaurant at the resort.  it was delicious and we feasted on shrimp, crab, and lobster.  i also got everyone hooked on the virgin pina coladas- they were to die for!

after dinner we were all exhausted from a full, long day in the sun. we spent a little bit of time walking around the resort, watching the ocean waves crash on the beach in the moonlight, and listening to the musical entertainment for the evening at the amphitheater.

we went to bed early because trent had another full day of mayan ruins planned for friday.

day 3 to come...

mexico in june

we totally went to mexico... 2 months ago.  

i'm just now getting around to posting about it.

the trip was amazing.

my dad organized everything-

think danny tanner from full house

when they went to disneyworld and he gave everyone an itinerary of what they would be doing (that's the same episode where dj imagines seeing her bf steve all over the park and where michelle got chosen to be princess of the day... remember?? )...

anyway,

pretty sure we have our own danny tanner

named trent bringhurst

and while there was no official itinerary, we were on a schedule everyday

up early most days (some 7am days), going here, there, and everywhere

but we're used to good old trent

and we loved everything he planned for us

and all the research he did

and we know had we planned our own vacation to the mayan riviera, we would have missed out on a lot

so, without further ado, i will start the first of many posts about our trip....

day 1:

we left june 9th on an extremely early flight (i think 6:30am?)

headed to phoenix and from there flew to cancun.

our gang was comprised of my mom and dad

older brother, 2 little sisters, 

my uncle bob,

and me and josh.

we were a very excited bunch.

after hours of traveling we finally arrived to the beautiful, sunny, and humid cancun.

an hour and a half later, we made it to our all-inclusive resort (about 15 mins south of playa del carmen).

my dad chose the barcelo mayan for us to stay at and the resort was phenomenal.

tiki huts, water fountains, greenery, flowers, cabanas, hammocks, etc.  

you name it, that place had it.

every detail was perfect right down to to the ash trays.

we felt like we were in paradise.

we wandered the grounds a bit, found our rooms, and got some grub (we were starrrrving)

then, my sisters, josh, and i decided to take a late night dip in the pool

and hung out on the hammocks and listened to the night creatures.

it was amazing and we had only been there for a few hours!

day 2 coming soon....