LoVe

Being a young, single girl, the subject of love comes up a lot.

To be honest, I've never been in love. I've loved, had way too many broken hearts, but I've never been in love.

I've had guys tell me they love me. One told me after I broke up with him because he treated me badly. One told me after knowing me a month, during a make-out session. Was it you loved me, or the action?

So, what is love? What is it that we are all searching for?

I have really little/poor experience in romantic love. But I am fortunate enough to have lots of experience in all the other kinds of love.

To me, love is:

• Grandpa kneeling on one knee asking Grandma to be his wife for ever, into the Eternities, because he loves her that much.
• Grandpa making rock jewelry for all the girls, for every holiday. Getting my ruby ring fixed for me, when the stone fell out.
• Dad driving me 4 hours to Rexburg for my first year of college, then turning around the next day and driving 4 hours back to Provo because I had a meltdown when he went to leave, and driving 4 hours back to Rexburg the next day to drop me off for good, then turning right around and driving 4 hours back to Provo again. 
• Dad using all his hard earned savings to send his kids to school, so we can start life with a good education and not in debt.
• When I was driving to St. George to visit Grandma and Grandpa,  I was feeling a little sick and coughing a lot. I called Grandma to tell her when I'd arrive at the Condo. When I pulled into the condo late that night, Grandma had left some cough medicine on the counter with a note for me.
• The way Grandma always tries to feed us, makes our beds, does our laundry - all the things she can do to make us feel comfortable.
• Mom never spending any time or money on herself, but giving it all to her family.
• The amount she prays for her kids.
• Mikail never giving up on me, even though I never give her a reason not to.
• Camree's love poems.
• Taylor pulling me aside to talk to me about something important, even though it was awkward.
• McKenzie never taking off the BOB necklace I made her.
• A friend driving 3 hours to spend a weekend with me when I was going through something hard, even though I never asked him to.
• Samar calling and telling me she's been thinking about me a lot (analyzing me as only she can, having been my best friend for 10 years) and some of the things I struggle through, and wanting to discuss these things in depth so I can have a healthier outlook on life.

I've never been in love, romantically. But I am so lucky to have good examples of what love is. It isn't extravagant gifts or showy displays of affection.

Love is time. It is putting someone else above yourself. Thanks, family and friends, for filling my life with love, for showing me what it is.

Love,
Brittney

Mexico/California Trip - Disneyland!!!

Before

This is what a truly happy child looks like:

Obligatory Mickey shots:

Bob kept her hands up the entire ride. Maybe she isn't such a pansy, after all

Mexico/California Trip - Horse back riding

Mexico/California Trip - ROSARITO!

View from our hotel room:

The pool, right outside of our hotel room, to the left of the bungalow in the picture above:

The pool went right to the edge of the ocean cliff. Magical.

View of the cliff down from the pool. Those rocks were really fun to climb in low tide.

Beautiful beach pics:

Rosarito fun!

Swimming

I love that she still plugs her nose...

Taylor Backflip series:

Taylor and Bobbie jumping series (I love Bobbie's face in each of these shots... priceless):

Beautiful Bobbie

Yes, this is what we did in Mexico - sit by the pool on our laptops.

If only we knew what was going through Ramzi's head at that exact moment...

Looks like a honeymoon shot, but whatever. Can you feel the love?

Bob about had a heart attack when Taylor did this... her face is not for show - she was one mad kid.

We found a cave. In the cave we found:

A bone. We convinced ourselves it was a human vertebrae - based on the size. Which is completely incorrect, it is far too large to be a human vertebrae - in case you were wondering. But it is a vertebrae - we were right there. Well, Taylor was right.

Ramzi and I have watched the complete seriese of the TV show, Bones. We love it. So, finding that bone brought back all these episodes of people finding random bones and bodies... and we kind of felt like it was our mission to solve this crime. Well, I mostly felt like it was my job to walk away and call the cops and tell them there was a dead body in a cave by the beach. Ramzi felt like it was her job to stick her camera in the cave and take pictures, so we could see the dead body inside. Here is what we found:

A leg bone. Can you see it? At the top of the big rock on the right. Now, if you are skeptical - good for you. However, when she first viewed the picture on her display, Ramzi thought for sure she'd jumped from real life into an episode of Bones. It was a magical moment for us all. Too bad it ended up being a rock. 

This is what Bob bought in Mexico - before:

After:

This is what Ramzi got (ask her about the glasses... but have a tissue ready for when she cries):

This is what Taylor got:

Thats right, a creepy/horrible/awful/demonic/disturbing mask, and a knife. 

This is what Taylor did with the mask immediately upon returning from purchasing it:

Yup, he crept up on me, who was innocently sleeping on the couch. 

And this is when he meets his revenge. After trying to scare me, he attacks Bob. Below is the sequence of the attack:

If you notice, first she socks him in the gonads with her hand (accidentally) then she knees him hard, once again in the gonads. Good brother that he is, he put her down before falling over himself in pain. 

Getting ready to go out on the town:

There was a Jesus statue on a hill right in front of our hotel.

Everyone's face in this is priceless. Well done, guys, well done.

Waiting for the taxi to come... you may wonder what we were looking at? Well, I'll show you. 

A giant climbing wall/trapeeze/wagon thing/jungle jim... basically, it looked like the circus set up and left and forgot to take their stuff. We didn't mind.

Ramz

I love how noble Taylor looks here... 

Downtown Rosarito:

Rosarito fish beach:

Some memorable Rosarito faces:

Look how happy we are. See, Mexico is fun!

Highlights of trip would include - bringing Ramzi into Mexico with no passport and cutting to the front of the 3-5 hour line back into the US. We didn't mean to cut, honest. And we felt bad, too! But not bad enough to walk back to the end of the line. 

Goodbye, Rosarito! We had a fabulous time!

Love,

Brittney