Knowing Christ in Christmas

     Christmas for me this year has brought on a new meaning.  I have been so fortunate to have found wonderful friends who get to endure through the agony and pain of pharmacy school with me.  I have to admit I was really wanting to find some good LDS friends like I had at ISU.  People with the same interests and way of living, but to my surprise I have been blessed with the most diverse group of friends.  We have had many religion talks, they seems to happen a lot when people find out your are Mormon.  But this wonderful season of Christmas has helped me realize the true meaning and why we exactly celebrate Christmas.
     So here is the group.....

           1) Irina = Russian, Jewish but now is a practicing Atheist

2) Kim = American, non-practicing Jehovah Witness

3)  Sam = Native American, Christian??? (i think? Haven't quite figured it out)

4)  Kristen = American, Not really a specific religion

5) Kali Jo = American, Latter Day Saint

Irina is missing, but the awesome friends

     Now I do not write this for comparing or saying that one is better then the other, but it has taken me awhile to appreciate the situation Heavenly Father has given me.  At first my group of friends use to call me Mormon and wanted to know why that was the name of the religion.  After a very long lunch discussions they learned that it is a nickname and now when anything is referred to me about religion they no longer say Mormon, but LDS.  This was a huge goal of mine for them to understand and start to say my religion was LDS.  To me this shows they understand that I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  

Elder Ballard stated beautifully in October 2011 General Conference the

importance of a "Name" and that we as members should call ourselves

Latter Day Saints, you can find his article here.  Here is part of his talk I liked...

"Brothers and sisters, just think of what an impact we can have by simply responding by using the full name of the Church as the Lord has declared we should do. And if you cannot immediately use the full name, at least say, “I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ” and later explain “of Latter-day Saints.”

Back in 1948 at the October general conference, President George Albert Smith said, “Brethren and sisters, when you go away from here, you may be associating with various denominations of the world, but remember that there is only one Church in all the world that by divine command bears the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord”

     Now on to the impression I have been having about knowing Christ in Christmas.  With the very diverse group of religions in my friends, I have learned a lot about their traditions in their family and what is meaningful to them during the holidays.  They all have their own beautiful meanings for celebration but can I just say that I feel so lucky, that for myself and my family WE have a beautiful meaning for Christmas!  It is not about gifts or some old man who brings great gifts (even though I do love it) but that it is a time to really celebrate our Wonderful and Beautiful Savior. He is the reason why we are on this Earth and to give thanks to our beloved Elder Brother who did so much for us.  This has been a burning testimony inside of my heart these last few days.  For I feel and am shameful to say that it took much time for me to understand the true meaning of Christmas, but I am very thankful that I know!  I couldn't ask for better friends to help get me through school and for this amazing time in my life to be the best example to them and share my testimony when I can.

This is the reason why the Finn's celebrate and Love CHRISTmas

I hope you and your families will find the true meaning as well this wonderful Christmas Holiday!

Merry CHRISTmas!

Time to be Thankful

     There is nothing better than the holidays.  We have been waiting for November to come for so LONG.  Not only does November mean lots of good, homemade food and family, but it also means COLD weather for a change!  We are talking cold like 65 to 75 degrees cold!  No more sweating or running the air conditioning, we actually get to keep all the windows open (which also means a HUGE decrease in our power bill!).  After spending a few days in Cancun, it was time to head to good ole IDAHO and really enjoy some cold weather.  Ryan and I were so excited, we actually got to pull out our winter clothes out of the storage bins and pack a sweater for a change, it was beautiful!
     One of the first things we were able to do was go Christmas Tree hunting with Ryan's sister and their little family.  I was so excited to be able to play in the snow!  We couldn't have asked for better weather and it even snowed on us a little bit!

Ryan, Me, and his little brother Jordan

The Hunt Clan

Ryan says this is the normal look I give him a lot, usually I am wondering why he is doing what he is doing! State of confusion, I guess.

   Ryan's sister Tiffany just had a baby about 4 months ago and we weren't sure how far we were going to be hiking to find the "perfect" tree so they stayed back in the car and were going to just wait for us.  After we found a great spot, Ryan and I decided it wasn't that far and so we ran back, and yes we really did run in the 2 feet of snow all the way back to the car to get Tiffany and Kennedy to come and play with us.

Ryan and Tanner

     This here is Jordan, he pretty much thinks he is an Abercrombie & Fitch model.  No one really knows what to do with him so we just let him be, haha.  Don't worry girls he will be available in about 2.5 years.

      It was a lot of fun playing in the snow, it really makes me miss seasons and just plain old weather.  The only weather we have in AZ is sun with a sporadic cloud in the sky, maybe.

     When we go to Idaho, we always have to ride horses.  I wish there was a way I could bring them to AZ.  We took Ryan's nephew Tanner out for a ride, he loves Rival and Danny.  This time we taught him how to brush the horses before we saddle them.

     It gets me excited for when we will be able to have horses someday and our kids will hopefully have a love for them like I did growing up.

     We were also able to go out and meet up with some friends we haven't seen in awhile to one of our favorite restaurants, Wingers!  We miss their "sticky fingers" they are just pure amazingness!

     Finally it was the big day we were all waiting for, THANKSGIVING!  I was so excited for some yummy food.  But of course you can't just eat everything in sight until you run a 5K in the morning, so we headed to the Paul, Idaho for the Turkey Trot where 2 of my sisters live.  We were both just so excited to run the race that I got us there a whole hour early! haha  My only goal was to beat my brother in law who is always competing with me, and by golly Ryan and I killed him by almost 5 minutes!

The Group

 All the sisters minus 1

Ryan has never ran a race before, but I am pretty sure after this 5K he is itching to run a 1/2 marathon with me!

   We enjoyed an amazing dinner at the Finn's on Thanksgiving, unfortunately I forget to take pictures of the clan.  The food was Fantastic.  One of the best things about having the parents live close to one another, even in the same state, is having 2 Thanksgivings!  My family had our dinner on Saturday!  It was so good also!  I was able to make little pilgrim hats out of reese's peanut butter cups and shortbread cookies with my nieces and nephews, they turned out pretty cute and a great appetizer!

I promise my nieces and nephews love me, they just might not show it all the time

Isn't my hubby a cutie?  

     Ryan and I love the cold! We are so excited to head back and hit the slopes to go skiing!  I ran almost every day in the cold weather! I was able to run in my cold gear and it was pure joy.  I tell you there is nothing like breathing in cold air and running up actual hills.  Probably one of my favorite winter activities.    

     It was so nice to go home and see family. It's sometimes hard to go home cause it makes us realize more and more that Idaho is becoming a place that we visit to see our family and not our home anymore.  It's hard to realize that AZ is actually "our" home cause our reality occurs there and we own something there.  We still love Idaho though and hopefully we will be back in 8 years!  

We will see you again Idaho in 3.5 weeks for Christmas and I will get to meet my brother in law Morgan, who is returning from a 2 year mission in the Dominican Republic.

Fall Cleaning

     I have been counting down the days this whole last quarter of school until I had a day where I could officially "deep" clean our apartment.  I was so excited to rent a carpet cleaner!  I officially think Ryan now understands how OCD I am about a clean apartment.  I was counting down the days to be down with finals and also to be able to CLEAN, not the usually Saturday morning cleaning!
     My last final that I had to take was a bruiser!  I pulled a true all-nighter, not even sleeping a second for that dang test and once 9:30 am rolled around I was a free woman from school (at least for 2 weeks).  Ryan didn't have his last test till 10 that morning.  I was planning on taking a nap and then I would start to clean, but I was foolish to even think that I would have been able to sleep.  So instead I headed straight for the store and rented a carpet cleaner!  When Ryan came home from his last test he was so ready to relax and take a nap but instead he found me elbow deep in the kitchen scrubbing away!  He is seriously the best husband ever.  He could have gone and taken a nap and I would have been fine with that but instead he put his stuff away and asked me where he could help.  He truly is a trooper in putting up with me and my crazy madness with cleaning.  Here are somethings he learned

1)  What it really means to clean out a fridge (take everything out, throw stuff, remove shelves, and wipe down everything)

2)  How to remove everything off a shelf and DUST

3)  Deep clean means clean the carpets with a carpet cleaner

(I forgot to take a picture of him cleaning the carpets)

4)  His wife LOVES the straight lines made when vacuuming

     After a long hard day of cleaning, our apartment is clean, fresh, and smells like cinnamon pine cones!

     I forgot to mention, the Saturday after finals, Ryan's buddy called him up and asked him "if his wife would let him go golfing" haha, of course I can't say no after him helping me clean, so in the middle of November, he went and golfed 18 holes!

Can You Cancun???

     That's right folks, we celebrated the end of this quarter by going to Cancun, Mexico for 4 nights and 5 days!  It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and in my opinion well deserved.  Ryan and I decided that since we fell in love in a foreign country (Peru) we needed to go somewhere foreign to kindle our love, haha.  So to Mexico it was!  We both finished this quarter with A's and it was much needed time with just the two of us and NO BOOKS!  We left Arizona in 70 degrees and reached Cancun in 70 degrees + humidity!

     We got an awesome deal on Costco for our hotel package, all inclusive and an anniversary suite, haha Ryan told them it was our one year anniversary even though it was a little past due!  We stayed at the Omni Resort!

This is our view of the hotel from the beach

This was our view off our balcony, we had 3 swimming pools, 2 hot tubs, and the Ocean!

A nice little surprise on our bed for Our "Anniversary"

And even rose petals in our toilet, didn't quite understand that one

     We played in the Ocean for a couple of hours a few days and did a lot of excursions.  I love the ocean, minus the salt!  The water was so clear and bright blue.  One day we decided to go on a "jungle tour" which included driving our own little speed boat which then took us to the ocean to go snorkeling.

Our Speedy driver! His hair shows how fast we were going, haha

The water was so BLUE!  I probably forgot to mention but this was my first time in the ocean!

     Our next excursion we decided to go see some ancient Mayan Ruins, Chichen Itza.  This is the 2nd  Seven Wonders of the World we have been to along with Machu Pichu and plan to visit all the others in their category someday.

This is one of the main/big temples!  We were sad that they no longer allow people to go up the stairs, but it was still a lot of fun!

Another temple

     On the way back from the ruins we were able to stop off at a natural cenote, sink hole, and take a swim.  It was pretty fun and crazy.  These pictures aren't very good but it gives you an idea.

     And our last big trip that we took we went "exploring" by zip lining, swimming in rivers in the caves,  and driving amphibious vehicles, haha they were probably the biggest disappointment.  I am pretty sure that my dad's mule (like a 4-wheeler) went faster then the "amphibious vehicles" we were on.  Everyone had to wear these awesome yellow helmets.  Some of the pictures aren't the best, we had a waterproof old school camera.

Our awesome amphibious vehicles, moves on land and in rivers aka puddles

Kayaking in the caves

Getting ready to go zip lining

     Unfortunately we didn't get very many pictures of us zip lining, the place we went to did but they wanted 40 bucks a picture!  So we went without them.  Zip lining was probably one of my favorites on this trip, we went over crocodiles and jaguars while also going over all of the tree tops.

Ryan snapped this shot of me but I forgot to get one of him

     Our next favorite thing was swimming in the river in the caves with all the stalactites and stalagmites. The water was very clear and cold, but it was a lot of fun.

     At our hotel there were about 5 restaurants you could choose to go and eat at all day long.  There was one very nice restaurant called Da Vinci.  It was probably one of the most expensive places I have ever ate at.  We were able to eat there one night.  Keep in mind we had already payed for everything, we were not even suppose to tip! It is the best idea to go all inclusive.

I enjoyed a $35 Filet Mignon 

Ryan had Chicken Parmesan 

     Our dessert was the coolest ever....

I had a Chocolate Piano made out of chocolate cake & white/brown chocolate

Ryan had the Mona Lisa cookie platter, made out of white chocolate and ice cream

     It was such a fun vacation! We will for sure come back and visit you soon Cancun!  I already miss slurping on my strawberry daiquiris and pina coladas (without alcohol of course!)

13 Tests Finished!

     That's right folks, Ryan and I finished yet another week of CrAzY finals, and CrAzY is a very big understatement.  Ryan had 6 finals over 2 weeks and I had 7 finals in 6 days.  Lets just say Ryan was so excited for finals when he was able to go grocery shopping with me and I let him pick up mac & cheese, ice cream, and pizza!  He was so excited to eat those oh so healthy foods again!  With us both having a very crazy week of stress, no time for cooking, and chaos, it was a Fend For Your Self kind of week!  On wednesday night, it was a very stressful night for me cause I had 2 finals on Thursday, I received a very kind, loving email with this lovely picture....

I believe the email said, "Do you feel like I do Yet?"

I think this picture sums up what our head felt like during this whole week, but needless to say, the Finn's are A students for another quarter!

     We celebrated ending the crazy week by going out to eat at good ole Red Robin for a juicy, greasy, taste satisfying Burger, and let me tell you it hit the spot and then went home and just relaxed for the rest of the night!  

     Ryan = 4 quarters down, 2 quarters TO GO!!!

     Kali = 2 quarters down, 6 quarters TO GO

My Lil' Sunshines

     This past Sunday was our ward's primary program.  Primary has been a lot of fun for me this past year.  It has taught me a lot about what it really means to "be as a little child."  I have been able to teach the CTR 6 and I tell you what, sometimes they just say the darnest things!  My kids did so go memorizing their parts and singing their little hearts out. I decided to make them some sun cupcakes for always "brightening" my day!

     This has probably been one of the best callings for me.  It has taught me what true patience really is!