Updates!

So I haven't posted anything in the last little while, so I'm going to give a recap of what's been going on...

After I got home from Spain, I didn't stay home long. I drove to Idaho with my sister and her three kids and spent a week there, also driving down to Utah for a bit. I had such a good time with my family and just hanging out for a bit!

In August I went to Hawaii for a week with my old roommate Holli. We stayed on Oahu and had some pretty fun adventures there. We hiked quite a bit, of course went to the beaches, had the best shaved ice in Haleiwa and swam with the dolphins in the ocean! I'm a bit of a 'pansy' now becuase I was a little scared to do it, but I eventually got over it. But I was done when I got stung by a jelly fish!

Once I got home, it was back to work! I worked at Fernhill Holly Farms (where they make christmas wreaths) during the super duper busy time of the year. It was non-stop running around, taking calls, helping employees, relaying messages and translating morning til night, but I had such a good time working there. I got to eat really good Mexican food everyday and the whole farm never ceased smelling like Christmas!

After all that, it was time to take some time off! And it was lovely! I hung out at the house reading with my new kindle (yeah!), cooking, eating and spending time with friends and family. I'll be starting a course to be certified to be a translator in the medical field, so I'm exciting to start learning more Spanish.

Oh, and my new favorite thing - ZUMBA! When I first heard about it, I thought, "Well that must be nice for those people who don't like to exercise." But I kept hearing about it so I thought I'd try it (especially since I love latin dancing). It's soo much fun! Even after the workout is over, I want to keep dancing!

ïEspaña!

I haven't been doing the best at keeping this thing updated, so now I will attempt to catch up on everything....

So first thing, I ended up missing about a month of school during winter semester because of that darn mono. I had to drop a few classes, but was able to finish my other classes in good standings!

After that semester was over, I moved my things back to Oregon and then set off to Spain for two months! It was such a great experience and I'm so happy that I was able to go. I lived with a spanish family in Alcalá de Henares which is about 30 minutes east of Madrid on a train ride. I went to school at AlcaLingua, which is in Alcalá where I studied Spanish literature from all different periods and styles and the art of El Greco and Salvador Dalí. Every weekend we went on trips to visit different sites and cities in Spain. My top cities are Barcelona, Sevilla, Burgos, Madrid, and Toledo. Here are a few pictures from the trip.


This is Toledo La Mezquita Kathryn being oh so reverent






Sevilla (a town in the south) FLAMENCO!


Yummy Paella



Somewhere in the south


Bullfight in Madrid




El Parque by Guadí La Sagrada Famila by Guadí Beach on the Med. Sea!





The beach at night The whole group at church



My Spanish Family

Spring Time!

Okay, so it's been a long while since we have blogged at all. There have been lots of new changes. For now, I'll just recap them and pictures will be coming later. First, we successfully finished our semester at BYU and we had to part ways. Lindsay flew off to New Zealand for Winter semester, leaving me all alone in our apartment! :( I thought that when I had come back from Christmas break, I would come back to an apartment full of new roommates. When I got back, there was no one there....for two and a half weeks! Needless to say, I enjoyed the first few days, but was very lonely after that.

Eventually, I got two new roommates and they are such sweethearts! Holli (that was weird for ahwile) and Kaycie moved in within a few weeks of each other and it's been a very eventful semester. However, I last week I started sleeping a lot and not feeling well only to find out that I have mono :( I'm just now starting to feel better and once I do, I promise to put pictures up of all our little adventures.

Home Sweet OREGON!!

We love random trips! One day Lindsay said that she had never been to Oregon and that she wanted to go. So I thought, well lets look at flights. So we looked and booked it. We just went this past weekend and we had such a great time!

First, Lindsay thought it was ridiculous that I brought this bag for only the weekend. But, it's the only one I have.

Once we got there, I took her up to the Holly Farm and gave her a tour.

I told Lindsay before we went into the Wreath Room that everyone will whistle at us. And they did. The people in that room have done that for years...we decided it was there nice way of saying 'hello'! So it was pretty easy to make friends

And Juaquin was nice enough to help us make our own wreath.

I showed her the loading dock where we found who the workers call "El Oso" (Translation: The Bear), who happens to be my dad.

We ate the most delicious Mexican food....so good!

And here are some other pictures that we took of the farm

We also went to two different beaches while we where there - Sunset Beach and Cannon Beach

We also went to the South Jetty, where the Columbia River and the Ocean meet. I long line of rocks was built there to help with the strong tides and currents. It was pretty cool to see the water crash up against the rocks...and to climb up there to get a better view!

We went to the Astor Column that sits on the higest point in Astoria. There are 164 steps to reach the top (I remembered that from my 4th grade class and Lindsay counted them to make sure I was right). The history of Astoria is painted on it. It was pretty windy up there and the view was gorgeous.

I also took Lindsay down to the East Morning Basin where the sea lions are taking over the docks.