HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

I love birthdays and I especially love mine because its around Thanksgiving allowing me to be home with all my family and most of my friends!! I also love my birthday because I get to celebrate it like for three days !!  I turned the BIG 23!!  The day before  I got to do some crazy BLACK Friday shopping with my mom and aunts, I later then got to go to the doctor for my face. We then had a birthday lunch to celebrate my cousin Kameo and mine at Zoupas. The next day was really my birthday in which dad made me breakfast and then later went to see "Megamind" with me :)  I spent the rest of the day with my dad and later that evening went and had dinner with some good friends. 

Megan and Barner

  Shalise and Amanda

JaNae, Drew, and Skyler

 all came to dinner after following my horrible "west aka east" directions to Wingers where we all stuffed our face full of sticky fingers. We then went to Skyler's home and enjoyed some yummy cake that Meg made and  I opened presents where Danny and Roland joined and then we watched a movie. 

THANKS EVERYONE 

 for a GREAT 23RD BIRTHDAY!!

Thankful and Grateful

Ah,  thanksgiving was so awesome I love this time of year so much!!  The leaves are changing and the weather is cooler allowing for scarves,sweaters, and boots!!  I had a wonderful thanksgiving I was able to spend it with all my family: parents, brothers, cousins ,aunt ,uncles, and grandparents and family friends...

I'M GRATEFUL FOR... 

1. Family is what I am so grateful, they all truly complete my life in every way

2. The gospel, which has truly opened my heart and spirit this last year

3. Friends,  they all bring so many great things into my life and push me to be my best

4. Health, even though I visit the doctor a lot I'm truly grateful for my body and being able to play volleyball with no injuries

5. AMERICA, I love living in this beautiful free country 

6. Volleyball, thanks to this great sport I have meet many wonderful people and have been able to attend college and travel

7.  Homes,  I'm thankful to call Utah my home and love living in California where I have roommates, since I'm an only girl

8.  Malibu Molly, an awesome car which has allowed me to travel to Utah and California safely

9. Laughter

10.CSUN and SLCC

11. Compaq and camera

12. Beaches and mountains

13. All 4 Seasons

14. Music and Dancing

15. Chocolate

16. Chick flicks

17. Clothes and shoes

18.Blogs

19. Airplanes

20. Letters

And for all the other SMALL and BIG blessings I have in my LIFE!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! 

An eventful Utah trip

 I drove up Saturday the 20th to Cedar City and planned to stay the night and leave the next day to go to P.G., but as a welcome home present it decided to snow really bad. Which ended up being okay because I got to visit with Megan and spend time with the Young family. Because of the snow storm I had to reschedule by missionary dentist appointment to Tuesday in which the day my car decided to lock it self making me late to the dentist. Anyways I got my mission dental exam after fixing a cavity which left half my mouth number for the following 4 hours!!! :(

          I have been wanting to dye my hair again (but was nervous because last year I broke out from the hair dye had a swollen face like "Hitch") so I figured this year would be different because my mom has her beauty licenses and we were not using the Loreal from Walmart. Yeah, NO!! I got a rash on my neck first and  totally got scabs in my scalp again and then had my right side of my face blow up like "Hey Arnold"  not good, except my face wasn't to bad this time.  Later Tuesday night I went to Kameo's surprise birthday party with my numb mouth so I didn't get to eat many sweets, but enjoyed playing pictionary with everyone. Wednesday I meet up with Drew Bradbury and got to have lunch with him at Cafe Rio which is the best !! It was so much fun to sit and talk about everything . Luckily my face hadn't begin swelling or maybe it was and Drew was to nice and didn't say anything. 

Grandma & Grandpa and Cousins

Grandpa Burnett and me

Me and cousin Jeffery

   After visiting the Redlands Temple I drove over to my Grandpa's home to visit him and my cousins. As I waited my Grandma Peggy called and said "she on her way so  be ready so we can go see a movie". We went to see "Unstoppable" which was a very intense true story that was like the movie "Speed". After walking out of the movie theater  grandma wanted to go back in and watch another movie. Oh she reminded me of my mom, who loves movies even seeing them back to back. Grandma talked non stop the whole time that I was there, I never knew how much information my grandma had bundled up in her.
   That evening she made me go through this pile of gifts in which I tried to refrain from saying yes to everything. Don't worry I'll write the list of gift I received.  The next morning she had so many ideas planned for us to do that day she couldn't  decided. I sadly wasn't feeling the best that Sunday morning so that stopped us from going up to Bear Lake and viewing the area. She took me to the San Bernardino County Museum which has the most different birds and eggs. Later that evening we got  a hold of my cousin Larissa  whom I haven't seen in 5 years. We had dinner together and saw the  movie "127 hours" about the climber who cut his arm off in Moab, Utah in 2003. Overall a very great weekend, I was able to meet my cousin Jeffery for the first time and to see my grandpa which has been over two years..  I love that I have family so close!!

Redlands Temple

Bro. Patton, Me,Katy, Davi, Helen, Laura , Emily, Mark

Me, Davi, Helen, Belle, Laura ,Katy, Emily, Mark 

Saturday was a beautiful day, Bro. Patton put together a temple trip to Redlands which happens to be right next to my grandparents. So I was able make two great visits over the weekend!! The Redlands Temple was so pretty and small and has the outward appearance like Mt. Timpanogos. The inside was so white and bright full of windows which is different compared to the Los Angeles temple that we frequently visit.  It was a great day and I am so thankful for Brother Patton and how he is always making appointments for us to visit the many temples that we are surrounded by.

Boxing Workout

We did a boxing workout for Relief Society Meeting this month thanks to Tiffany Larson, a new girl in our ward is training to become a professional boxer.  A big thanks to Syd for suppling the boxing gloves and target gloves. Before everyone got there we had to test the equipment out first in which we found out that Katy isn't the best puncher more of a cat fight girl.  It was great to have 14 of the girls show up and all excited to be punching and letting out angry against the bag. I have to say my shoulder were very sore the next day from the intense workout P.S. I do not know if I should be admitting this or not but I changed my first flat bike tire today. Yes, I know I am 22 years old and now changing it for the first time.. I'm LAME I know.

Cyera and Grandma

On Saturday I received a card from my Grandma Peggy stating :

 Tela, If you're not busy on Nov. 10th, meet Cyera and I at CONRAD'S Restaurant 1 block south on R side on LAKE ST EXIT. Pasadena (Go R after exiting the freeway. about 5:45
 6 p.m. OK. 

Love Gma Peg

 I was sure glad I had nothing planned because grandma had scouted out a place for us to meet and she was serious. Oh she is the cutest grandma ever I truly love her and I am so grateful for her!! So of course I got a little lost trying to get there after missing my exit but I made it. We had a great dinner and talked about how my grandma is headed to Mongolia in May just after my graduation. We then talked about the church, which I believe was the first time that I have really spoken to either one of them about . Before they could leave, even though they were going to be late grandma had to give me gifts of course. Which happened to be..

A fish picture from a place called Laggon 

Live, Laugh,Love  Ceramic Vases

National Geographic The World Poster

Dreamsicle notebook

Two handmade bookmarks  

The book Wit and Wisecracks by Mark Twain

Letter holder

Shambala Preserve donation card

Coin Purse

Metal man pencil holder

Incense tin

Fake flowers

Money themed recycle shopping bag

Walking and Yogurt

Look at how pretty it is and its November

So I have figured out that any activity that you do before or after frozen yogurt is fun. This time we decided to walk to Tutti Frutti since all our bikes are flat right now. It was very relaxing walking I felt like we're moms going on our morning walk. We were able to talk about what's going on in the ward and our day at school and very random things.  The walk was good except for when you plan to a missionary lesson at 4:oo p.m. and you are just leaving the yogurt place at 3:40 p.m. 

Breanne!

Me and Breanne

Now that I am done with volleyball I have been able to go support my friends that are still playing. This weekend I was able to go watch Breanne Metcalf aka Megan's sister who plays a Moorpark College. I love this girl she is so kind, nice, and fun to be around. She a little like her big sister which allows us to get along great :) Way to go Breanne on a great game with 3 assist and some great  blocks!!

Elder Hessing

Katy, Me and Elder Hessing

Me and Elder Hessing

 This year my testimony grew a lot because of the misionaries in our ward and my callings. The last missionaries Elder Hessing and Bradbury helped me to become a better person and to helped me make the decision that I should serve a mission. Elder Hessing was a great missionary and helped me learn so much about this gospel!! 

 Thank you so much Elder Hessing!

Pie Making

For Family Home Evening we had a " How to make pie night". A girl in my committee Sarah volunteered to show us how to make apple pies which turned out great because it made me get ready for Thanksgiving. I was surprised to see around 22 people there to make pies. Sarah did a great job getting Talene to the activity  a girl in our ward that haven't seen in many months. It was great experience to see all the hard work that goes into making  apple pies and the chance to bake again.