Stevenson Camping Trip

My family has a reunion camping once a year at a place called Browne Lake, I love it even after all these years. Bryce and I got to take his family up there and show them this place that we've been so many times before, it was a blast. I love camping and I can't get enough of it. We did a lot of fishing, washer toss tournaments, walks, four wheeler rides, tons and tons of eating thanks to mom and dad, night time surgery on Abbie removing fish hook from her chest, and just plain old sitting around the camp fire enjoying one anothers company. Thanks for going to Browne, I enjoyed myself. If anyone of the Stevenson clan wants to come up with us again in Sept. your all invited, more fishing, washer toss, four wheeler rides, food, but this time you will get to hear the elk bugle, it's so neat. Thanks again everyone!!

Me and Bryce at Young Springs

Natural Springs

Rob, Brody, and Grandma Maxfield crossing the springs

Bryce had baby Aivree and Abbie in his lap, Abbie was in Aivree's lap, I think they liked one another. I sure thought it was cute.

Cute Grandpa Maxfield

Bryce fishing Spirit

One of the fishes Bryce caught, took a picture of the smallest one for some reason.

The fisher people at Spirit

Spirit Lake

Ogden Rodeo

We went to the Ogden Rodeo last night, and it was a lot of fun. They have the rodeo all week long, but we always go on the night that they support breast cancer, it's called "tough enough to wear pink". There is just something about cowboys in pink that just seems like an oxy-moron. My mom is a breast cancer survivor, so we go to support her.
The night was full of adventure from the baby steer that escaped through the fence and started running threw the crowd, to the two men that collied with there horses resulting with one horse rolling over the top of his rider, you know, just your everyday rodeo. I think that's why I like them, you can go every year, but something crazy is bound to happen.

Bridal Shower

Last Saturday, my sister and I threw my younger sister Jamie a bridal shower. It was a lot of work, mostly because we are over achievers, but it turned out sooo cute! My brother-in-law Kelly thinks he summed it up for us when he said, "why can't you girls just get together throw some food on the table, let her open her presents and call it good?" Ha, and disappoint Martha Stewart? We did go maybe just a little bit over board, but it was a lot of fun getting to work with Jen. Thanks Jen for all your work, and congrats to the bride to be on all the great gifts you scored on. I'm just glad I only have two sisters.

Here is a picture of our cute table

and here is Jen, Jamie, mom, Kendell, and me

reunion of our own

Last night I got together with some of my old friends from high school. We had dinner at Tepanyaki's, yum, and than we went out for dessert afterwards, like we needed it. It was so good to see all of them again, exchange stories of our lives now, and of course tell stories of how it used to be. There were a lot of laughs and memories brought to the table. I've missed you girls, it was good to see you again. Until next time, here are some pictures to hold us over. (we missed you Rae :( And you other posers that bailed, you missed out, maybe next time.)

me and Darci

Lacey

Erin

Aj

All of us together at last

MIA no longer

The other day Bryce and I were going to go golfing and I went to load my clubs up into the car, and they weren't there. I told Bryce they were stolen. He said, who would still your clubs? I didn't know, but they were gone. Bryce had left his 3rd car open early in the month, so I figured that's what had happened. Well a couple of weeks had past, and we got a note on our front door to call some cop, he had apparently found some stolen golf clubs. This loser got busted for stealing other items in our neighborhood, and decided to work with the cops. He drove him around and showed him everywhere he had stolen from and what. So I now have my clubs back, I will have to sanitize them, but I have them back can you believe it? The funny thing is, had he gone up into the other garage he would have found 2 mountain bike,2 snowboards, and best of all Bryce's wallet and some truck keys, wow, talk about lucky!

Brasil photos at last

Flying to Brasil

Our Resort in Rio Quente, Goiania


This is just one of the many natural pools at our resort, they were so pretty and ohhh soooooo warm.



Our favorite families in Hidrolandia, we miss them so much!!




Aren't these pay phones awesome? They look like turtles

We have lots of pictures of Bryce back in the day, standing in front of this church with whom ever he was going to baptize. Of course then, they didn't have this fence, and he was actually on the chruch property, so I guess it's a little different, but still almost the same.

These are our little pound puppies. They are the stray dogs that I would feed periodically because I felt bad for them. :-( And Bryce thought I was a freak!

These pictures are of the beautiful Iguassu Falls, they don't do it justice, we can't get all of it into a picture because they are just that big! All of the locals said that the falls were actually really low, I can't imagine what they look like when they are full.















Going to church in Foz Do Iguassu

Over looking Rio De Janiero from the Christo statue, you can see the Copacabana beach.

Looking at the famous Sugar Loaf Mountains from the Christo


On the smaller mountain of Sugar Loaf Mountain. You take a cable car from one mountain to another, it was pretty neat.

Check out these hang gliders that kept coming right up next to the Christo, I bet they had a really great view!

Me, Bryce and the Christo (and a million Brasilian tourists)

You can see the Christo hiding behind the clouds. I took this picture all the way down on the Sugar Loaf Mountains. I don't think anyone has any idea how big that Christo really is. You can see him from just about any where in Rio. And he can see the entire city. Bryce and I joked that on Carnival they probably cover up his eyes.

Triple A's (anything at all), please!!

Dear Family and Friends,
As many of you know Kendell our niece, was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis ("CF") in July of 2002 when she was six months old. Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease that creates thick mucus in the lungs and digestive tract. Cystic Fibrosis currently affects 30,0000 children in the US. Right now there is no cure, but we hope to change that soon.

Kendell is now a happy and active seven year old, due to the wonderful doctors who treat her, and let's not forget her awesome parents that take excellent care of her as well. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is continuously funding research and is closer than ever to finding a cure. They are very careful with the donations that they receive and have been voted the number health charity by the New York Times.

On May 30th, Team Kendell will be participating in the annual CF walk at the MTC Parkway in Ogden. This event is to raise money for research to help find a cure. I know that this past year has been tough on all of us financially, but if you can donate anything at all or if you would just like to walk with us, either would be greatly appreciated. If you are wanting to donate, please leave a comment and I will let you know how to get a hold of me, thank's.

Ogden Marathon

Yeah you read it right, I did the Ogden 1/2 Marathon with my two sisters and my mom. Let's be honest, Jamie had to twist my arm to even get me to do this thing, we were just going to walk it at a very fast pace, she gave me a list of all the positive reasons to do it, the pros out weighted the cons, that's what she said, and she said what good reason do you have to not do it? Well let's think, I hate to run/walk really fast, especially for 13.1 miles!! Well things pretty much went just like I thought they would, my mom and I went walking about 3 months ago, probably only did a few miles, and about 1/2 a mile into it I did something to my foot. So I never did a day of training from then on out, probably not the brightest idea I ever had. I didn't think it would really matter all that much because I was this close to just throwing my money away and not doing the stupid race, especially when my mom told me 2 days before the race what time I would have to get up that morning, 3:30, you read it right. I will be the first to admit it, and mom you can be next, but I was really not happy. I was really really mad. I had a really bad attitude. And then the next day, mom told me that the race didn't actually have a "walkers category", they kinda misled me on that. So here I'm getting up early for this race that I didn't really want to do, and now knowing that I'm really going to look stupid because there wasn't a category for walkers, aahhh! I changed my attitude immensely today for the race though. Jamie stayed right there with me as she said she would. I kept telling her to just go on without me because I felt that I was really holding her back, beings that I never trained for it and all. We actually ran quite a bit, defiantly walked more, but I did it, I finished the race, and now I can say that I did a 1/2 marathon. Now if only I could walk, I really did a number on that same foot again.


Team Kendell
It's that time of year again. Team Kendell (my niece) is collecting donations and getting ready for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundations Great Strides Walk. The walk is on May 30th at 10:00 a.m. at the Ogden River Parkway. All money donated and collected goes to Cystic Fibrosis research and goes directly to the CFF (cystic fibrosis foundation) and we need all of your help. If you are interested in donating and/or walking with us let me know, we would love to have you join us, leave a comment if you'd like to donate and I'll let you know how to get in touch with me!

Mother's Day Blues

This is something that I have never posted about, and don't really even like to talk about that much, but it's on my mind, and I'd like to get my feelings out, so bare with me. A lot of the time I feel that people's posts just have to be about the positive things and about how great our lives are and nobody ever has trials or problems in the blogging world, ya right.
I'm finding deep down, that the holidays like mother's day, are getting harder and harder to get through as another one comes and goes and I'm still not one. Many of you don't know I'm sure, because I really don't talk about it that much, but Bryce and I have been trying for quite sometime now. It's been a really long rode of crappy Dr.'s not caring and not knowing what the heck there talking about, a laprascopy, many tests, many emotions, and we still have no answers. There has been a lot of growth through this process as well. Trials make us stronger. I have no doubt that I will have kids one day, it just needs to be on the Lord's time, we have complete faith that he knows what he's doing. We really are ok, I think that we have handled things really well, I just find myself thinking about it occasionally, and tonight just happened to be one of those nights.
I'm grateful however, for two amazing mothers. KayLynn and Debbie. They are wonderful women who have raised two amaaaaazing kids, (me and Bryce) And I don't think we could have turned out any better:-) Our mothers, I'm sure as most of yours, would do anything for us, and they really have that unconditional love thing going on. They are our biggest cheerleaders, and we don't know what we would do without them. We love you mom's!! We are also grateful to all of our wonderful sisters and sister-in-laws. They are all great moms in there own way. We are so blessed to be around such great examples of motherhood. I hope to take bits and pieces from each of them one day and form it into my own mold of "motherhood". Thanks for letting me get my feelings out into my so called "journal", I just wish that it was a little more private, I'm not one that likes to talk like this often.
Happy Belated Mother's Day to all you mom's!

We survived Brasil!!

We are back, and we were already missing it on the way to the airport. It is so hard for us to come home from vacations. We left on April 16th and came home on the 27th, I know it seems long, but it when so fast, especially when we had 9 flights, and a many a car ride in that short amount of time. We flew into Rio stayed there a couple of days. Saw the Cristo, Sugar Loaf Mountains, and don't forget Co-pa Co-pa-ca-ba-na (beach)! It was such a high pace place with beautiful beach's and sky scrapers everywhere. My mom kept telling me to promise her not to go out after dark, ya right. It was dark at 6:00, so sorry mom, we did a lot of walking at night, grocery shopping (had to stock up on the Guarana), coming home from restaurants, walking the beach, and can you believe it nothing ever happened.
From there we flew to Iguassu Falls. They are the most beautiful waterfalls ever! If you want to see Niagara put to shame, go to Brasil, it was amazing. My pictures or video just does not do it justice. If anyone would like to go see it for themselves, we would be happy to be your tour guides, for free.
And last but not least, we flew into Goiania. That is where Bryce served. We spent a whole week there. We were able to get a resort in Rio Quente through our time share, and it was such an amazing resort. All of the pools are natural springs that come up out of the ground and they were so warm, it was like a nice warm warm bath tub. And anyone who knows me, knows how I love my bath tubs! We got to see one of the families that still lived there when Bryce was there. They absolutely freaked when they saw "Elder Stevenson"!! They seriously screamed on the streets in Brasil like a bunch of little girls, well I guess most of them were girls, but still, it almost brought a tear to my eye with how excited they were. They fed us dinner, Bryce sang and played them songs on the guitar like he used to when he was there many years ago, the video of all of that is absolutely priceless. Bryce kinda freaked me out at times with how well he speaks Portuguese, everyone commented on how well he still knew the language, (well at least that's how he translated it to me, who knows what they really said huh?) They probably said, "what did you see in her???"
Bryce really could not have been more in his element, he loved it. It was so good to see him so happy, in the place where he became a man. He truly loved his mission and I'm so glad that I got to see why. The people are amazing, they don't have much but think that they have everything. They don't complain about anything, they are such a simple people. And there hearts could not be any larger, they were so loving and welcoming with the little that they had. We miss them already. Don't worry, we have our 5 year visas now, and we'll be back.
A lot of money later, 9 long flights, Janica's unforgettable driving experience involving a stick shift, a big hill, and burning rubber in a foreign country, Bryce and Janica both getting a slight cold, Bryce having to change 2 flat tires which had nothing to do with Janica's driving because it was a totally different rental car, missing our little fuzzy Abbie so much, Janica swearing that she had a parasite when they got home because she had major diarrhea and the worst constant stomach cramps ever for a good 5 days. -----Sharing an experience of a life time with your best friend, PRICELESS!!
**Pictures to come later!