Okay, so I have to go in for jury duty tomorrow...argh!

I am so excited about the fact that it is finally officially fall!

I have been thinking a lot about life. We just had a sister in our ward pass away yesterday (I didn't ever get the chance to know here because her husband was the bishop in the YSA ward out here, so they always went to church there). I have had to deal with the subject of death quite a bit over the past few years, having lost friends to car accidents, or to other issues...I am still dealing with the fact that a few months ago someone that I was in the YSA ward with was killed...not accidentally...someone came into his home and killed him...I am still having a hard time believing that that incident was even possible.

Okay...so I had been dropping major hints about wanting a Kitchenaid mixer, and Paul surprised me by going to Wal Mart while we were in Utah and buying one for me. It is my anniversary, birthday, and most likely Christmas present. I thought to myself, now I can do a lot more baking!

So yesterday was my birthday...I turned 27. It is hard for me to come to grips with the fact that I am inching closer to 30...I still feel like I am in my early 20's!

I just realized that I have not talked about when we went to Sea World, or when we went to Utah. I didn't put up any pictures of Sea World, but I did post some from our vacation. Sea World was pretty fun. We did all of the usual stuff...saw the dolphins, saw Shamu, went to see the polar bears, penguins, beluga whales, fed the bat rays...now let me tell you, that was interesting this time. I don't know what happened, but somehow I ended up with half my hand in the bat ray's mouth! It was a really weird feeling!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are back from vacation! We went up to Utah to visit family and friends. I will post some pictures once we get a little more settled (also ones from Sea World, since we went there right before vacation). Oh, and if any of you tried to read my blog last week (since I know that there are SO MANY of you!

They have just downgraded it from a 5.6 to a 5.4, with reports of minor structural damage, no major injuries or deaths reported. That is good to know!

Whew!