5 inches!!!

So we were down in Utah for a week in April. My little sister and her husband were blessing their little boy Crew!! It was our first time meeting him...so CUTE!!

While we were there I decided it was time...time for Emma to get her first hair cut!! I'm not going to lie, I was terrified!! I love her hair, but it was getting to the "straggly" point. And something needed to be done! So we headed down to American Fork where my dear sister in law Charakie, did the honors of giving Emma her FIRST EVER hair cut!! She actually took about 5 inches off!! Crazy, but I think it turned out DARLING!! It looks way healthier now!! Big THANKS to Charakie!! We sure do love you!!

This is the best I could do for a before picture...just so you can see how long it was!

She was a bit unsure about the chair, so mommy sat with her. She had her sucker and iPhone, she was good to go.

All done!

she didn't want to hold still to get a finished picture, so here's the best that I could get!! Pretty cute though huh??

The most AMAZING weekend EVER!

So this weekend was THE weekend. The weekend that 1200 youth from across BC and Bellingham WA have been working hard for. They have practiced and practiced and then practiced some more. Putting together an incredible show to celebrate our wonderful Temple!! They were not only excited for the Temple, they were excited because our sweet prophet came all the way up here to watch them!! All their long hard work was completed!! And it was ALL worth it. They were AMAZING!! They did such a wonderful job, I was so proud of them.

I feel very lucky and blessed that I was asked to help. What a blessing this whole experience has been!! To do all this work for my youth!! I would totally do it all over again, if they let me!

Here is our beloved prophet, just arriving to the Langley Event's Centre

Speaking to the youth just before the start of the show

The finale number...so incredible!! Such an amazing spirit in this room as the youth sang:

"We are the youth of the latter day, we will stand as a witness for Christ and say, oh glory to God lift your voice and sing with the angels adorning our Lord and King...

Today is the day that we make our choice, to enlist in His army and raise your voice. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, choose you this day!...

We will stand as a beacon for truth and light, we will hold up our torches this glorious night. We have come from afar to this holy place, for the temple is here and we all give praise!"

" I love to see the Temple, I'm going there someday. To feel the holy spirit, to listen and to pray. For the Temple is the house of God, a place of love and beauty. I'll prepare myself while I am young..."

And then to top off the weekend, we were able to go to the Vancouver Temple Dedication! It was AWESOME!! I am SO grateful for the Temple and all the blessings that come with it! What a blessing it is to have it here in Vancouver!!

for any more info on this AWESOME event go here !!

Easter Weekend

I suppose it's about time for a new post!! Things here have been SUPER crazy!! Wika was in training for his Yellow Pages job for 4 weeks!! It was just crazy busy for him. He was there for 9 hours or so a day then he gets home and starts on job number 2! He was there with us at home, but just wasn't really "there" My poor husband was just exhausted. So we decided we wanted to get away! So we planned a trip over the the Island for Easter weekend. We were pretty lucky he got Good Friday and Easter Monday off! So we booked our ferry reservation and a hotel and we were off!! And can I just say WOW, what a great trip it was!!! We even got to stay a couple of extra days because his work needed him over there for some help on a couple of appointments! It was just nice to get away, just our family. We were able to stay with some great friends 2 nights and then we stayed in Victoria for a night as well! The island is BEAUTIFUL, and yes...I think I could be an island girl! I woulnd't mind living there at all!!

So here is the start of the trip, the ferry. We just so happened to leave the day of a huge WIND storm. We were quite nervous that they would cancel our ferry, but alas they didn't. They did have to cancel some of the smaller ferries though due to the storm.

Emma of course LOVED the big boat...she ran and ran and then just when you think she was done she ran some more. I however was getting a bit sea sick, because of the storm, the boat was swaying quite a bit and I couldn't wait to get off!

Our first stop, once we were offf the ferry, was in Nanaimo. Where we stayed with our good friends the Schortinghuis'. When we arrived she had one of the BEST Crepe lunches for us. I had heard all about her crepes...and they definitely surpassed my expectations! They were delicious. The next day we decided to make the trek to the west coast...Toffino and Ucluelet.

We stopped on the way at Cathedral Grove. Not quite red wood sized trees...but BIG trees!

Emma is about to jump off a tree, that is pretty much all she wanted to do...well that and take EVERY pinecone that was on the trail and throw it to the side.

Family photo...we are inside an uprooted tree...see I told you they were pretty big!


They gang...me, Wika, Emma and Joyce (the incredible crepe maker) in Toffino
On the beach in Toffino-Emma and her puddles...by this time she was a total wet mess. We had to take her pants and socks off any time we got in the car and try and dry them as much as we could...at least until the next stop where she just jumped in the puddles again. Totally cute though

After a great visit in Nanaimo we headed to Victoria. Easter Monday turned out to be one incredible day! So we just wanted to be outside. So we headed to the wharf. Here is Emma watching the seals, she had NO fear we had to watch her like a hawk.

Feeding the seals at the wharf

Our cute family at the Wharf in Victoria

Wika and his mussels and clams...ewww (he sure was in heaven)

This was absolutely my FAVORITE stop of the trip. Many of you know, and if you don't you will now, but my husband went to boarding school at Shawnigan Lake. He was there for his junior and senior year. I am not sure why he had to go to boarding school, he was such a "good" kid!! He did really enjoy it there, and I can see why... it was just BEAUTIFUL!!

This building is the main building...

This was where he lived, Lonsdale house. However, that is no longer Lonsdale house as they have expanded.

Here is the church, they were required to attend.

Here is the real "Lonsdale" house. (plaque)

Here is the dining hall, ya totally reminds me of Harry Potter!! :o)


It was such a gorgeous campus and I could really have spent more time there. But we needed to head up WAY north of the Island to Campbell River.

There wasn't a whole lot to do there, but our hotel was right on the water front so we would just walk the seawall. (no pictures here, just some videos-sorry)

Here is Emma - after a nice long day there's nothing like laying down and falling asleep in a nice king size bed!

We were pretty far north, and here is our proof...the 50th parallel

*this is the day we left...yet again another wind storm



I know, it was a long post and I could of broken them up...but oh well!! We had a wonderful trip!! And I am already trying to figure out when I can go back to the island!?!?

Chopsticks anyone?

We had some Chinese food for dinner last Friday night and Emma saw daddy eating with chopsticks. So she of course needed to eat with chopsticks also...

"I think I've got it"

After that exhausting dinner, we gave her her very own lemon drop cupcake.

She was pretty excited about it! Who wouldn't be though??

Olympic Fever

We went downtown last Thursday to check out all the hap, hap happening stuff going on. We only went for a very short amount of time. We picked Wika up from work and headed down via skytrain. We knew we didn't have much time - we got down there around 6:15 and left around 8...so there was a lot to do in a very small amount of time! We only made it down to Robson Square and down to the Cauldron, so we obviously are going to go down again!! Here are a few pictures from our outting!

That night was the night of the Canada vs. Sweden game. It was a pretty intense game that Canada ending up winning in a shoot out...we were down there for all of this. Hockey isn't "just" a game down here...it's a religion. So when that game got out and Canada had won...it was CRAZY downtown. It was Awesome!! This picture is a bunch of people gathered around the CTV tent watching the game!!

Lantern Forrest

Emma, just enjoying the ride with her french fries!
OH CANADA

The Ice Skating rink at Robson Square, just another FREE thing to do downtown!

(we didn't do it-because it's free there is a nice long line!)

This was a TV on the wall of a building, just another great place to stand and watch the olympics

Family photo at the cauldron

The Beautiful Cauldron that you can't get close to, thank heavens for the 12inch hole in the fence so you can take a picture...without the fence.

That is it for day one of the Gordon-Smith trip to downtown Vancouver!! Can't wait for day two, we are trying to get tickets to a medal ceremony on Wednesday...keeping my fingers crossed!

OK, so maybe TWICE in a lifetime?

Yay for the Olympics!! We have yet to go downtown and partake in the festivities...and we plan on doing that a couple of times!! What an opportunity, to be living in the host city again for the Winter Games!! The atmopshere and energy is SO positive!! It really is so exciting!!

The Olympic torch came through Surrey on Monday Feb 8th, and it just so happened to come by just a block away from us. Unfortunately Wika had to work, but Emma and I made sure we were there. It was scheduled to come by around 2:55 pm...so I woke Emma up early from her nap and we headed up! It was amazing to see the street lined with people of all ages dressed in RED and White (Canada has always had such GREAT colors...don't you think??)

They had a lot of "sponsor" trucks come by handing out flags and coke and they were playing music!! Emma LOVED it!! She was mesmerized by everything going on!! She would wave her flag with pride while dancing...it was super cute!!

Here are a few pictures...I of course will put up more when we head downtown to Olympic Village!!

Emma waving her flag so fast I couldn't really get a good picture

There is the Beautiful Torch!

Then later that night they had a celebration at Holland Park...it was the end of the torch relay for that day...so we picked Wika up from work and headed down there for FHE. Boy was that insane...total MAYHEM!! Barely could even get around. So we waited in line to get some free COKE (even though we don't like Coke-but they were special Olympic bottles, so why not) then we waited in line to hold the torch and get a picture!! YAY for us!! Then at 7 we "watched" the actual torch come in for the night...all we got was the flame!! That was pretty much it for the night, it was cold and way too crowded.

that right there...is the Olympic Flame!

The walk back to the car, she was just so excited to be down and walking around-since she did just spend an hour on daddy's shoulder's with NO opportunity of getting down.

And just remember...I will always be an AMERICAN but this Canadian spirit is AWESOME!! SO with that...GO USA and GO CANADA!!

*Canada got their FIRST gold medal on home soil yesterday...pretty AWESOME!

Alexandre Bilodeau

it's a great feeling to be here while history is in the making!!
More to come when we go downtown...

why don't I post very often....

This is why!



and this

Temple Youth Celebration

and let's not forget the best for last



That's right...you can call me President!! I was just put in as the new Young Women's President!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!! And am so excited...and super busy!! But it's totally worth it. I have AMAZING girls and can't wait to get to know them better!!

Also, we have the HUGE Youth Temple Celebration coming up! This consists of ALL the youth in our Temple district! Approx 1000 youth! WOWSER! It's a big celebration of song and dance...and it's going to be amazing!! And of course I wanted to help...this all happening before I was called as YW pres of course, so I am the Dance Liason for our Stake! I get to teach the youth of our stake their routines!! YAY!! No really, we are talking BIG deal. We have rehearsals every other weekend starting mid February. The actaul celebration happens on May 1st, one day before the Temple is dedicated!! Which means, the PROPHET will be there!! Oh it gives me chills just thinking about it!!

And last, well Wika starts his new job on Monday!! We have been SO spoiled!! Even before Emma was born my husband had an amazing job that allowed him to work from home! He was there for Emma's first EVERYTHING!! We know we were so lucky but times have changed...and it's time to act like the rest of the world!! We have really treasured our last week together with daddy home!! Lots of walks, movies and tonz of LAUGHING!!

This is a great big SHOUT OUT to my sweetheart!! We love you SO much and thank you for all your hard work and everything you do for us!! YOU ARE THE BEST!! Good luck on Monday babe!!

So you might see this as an excuse...I see it as an incredible journey!! At least I know I HAVE to blog!! I do it for me, my family and whom ever feels the need to read our blog!! To you...I hope to be better and keep you updated!! Until then,

Ciao