Goblin Valley Again

A few weeks ago we went camping at Goblin Valley with Ryan's family. We went last year in March sometime and I was pretty pregnant. This time around Rose is now 1 and a bit and I am not pregnant so I was able to actually play hide and seek and climb all over the rock formations.

I was so sure it would be miserable and horribly hot to be in Southern Utah in the middle of June, so I was kind of dreading the trip, but the weather ended up being surprisingly very nice. (It may have something to do with me praying beforehand that I would be able to have fun and not complain the whole time... prayer works!)

We were down there for 3 1/2 days, camping in the wilderness and we all survived and had a lot of fun. And I am SO glad that I got to do it this time without being pregnant. I would not recommend camping while in the third trimester. Not fun!

Some highlights:

- seeing a giant lizard,
- playing hide and seek in Goblin Valley State Park
- accidentally stumbling upon a geocache in the Park
- eating s'mores of course
- freezing to death at night because we weren't expecting the temperatures to drop SO much. And Rose sleeping with us so we could keep her warm, even though she never wants to sleep with us anymore.
- going to sacrament meeting in Green River where everyone was SO SO SO nice to us even though we smelt AWFUL.

This is a late blog post and my brain is feeling a little foggy right now, so I'm just going to go ahead and post pictures now. Enjoy!

Fathers

I know Father's Day was two weeks ago, but is there ever a time that we shouldn't celebrate the important and meaningful people in our lives? I have been immensely blessed to be surrounded by really good men in my life and I wanted to write about them for you! We have plenty of bad men in the world, I hope this is a good reminder that there are good men too!

(Also, I know that an aesthetically pleasing blog post wouldn't have SO many pictures, but I just LOVE all of these photos and I already narrowed it down... TWICE... so you're just going to have to deal with the pictures that were left.)

I have a Dad who has always worked hard to provide for my family, who sets a good example to me of kindness and optimism, and who loves my Mom and all of us. He always does the right thing, even when it isn't the easiest thing. He is also the most grateful person I've ever met. While I was on my mission, he was going through chemotherapy and I remember getting emails from him about how he was just SO grateful for all of his blessings when I think it could have been really easy to not really feel that at the time.

I have a Father-in-Law who is steady and loyal and who taught my husband how to be a good man and to always look for ways to serve others. When Ryan was growing up they went to every single service opportunity their ward offered, even while he worked 2 jobs to provide for the family. And he is an awesome grandpa to Rose.

This is Ryan's dad with a baby Ryan! 

I have a husband who is wonderful in every way. He always strives to be better than the day before, he loves Rose and me to the ends of the earth, and he works really really really hard to provide for us while also going to school so we can have a better future. He is fiercely loyal to me and to those he cares about, he's kind to those who don't fit in, and he will drop anything to help someone in need. I fell in love with him while we were dating because every time we visited someone he would do their dishes. He's the best Dad to Rose, always willing to read her a book, spin her around, or give her a piece of chocolate when she points to the candy jar. She gets so excited every time she hears the door open when he comes home from work. I LOVE being his wife.

I have a grandpa who is a good example to me of quiet service. While he shows a grumpy exterior, he will always show up to help out, even when it is inconvenient. He is forever making gifts for people I would never even think to thank, like the mailman, doctors and nurses who he has met while in the hospital, and neighbors. He's a hard worker and one of my favorite people to sit and listen to as he tells stories.

Also, how cool does my grandpa look in this photo with my mom? 

I've had bishops and a mission president who saw my potential and always encouraged me to be my best self, while also always being willing to sit and talk to me when I needed guidance. They were busy men with a lot on their plate, but they always made me feel like I was important and as if they had all the time in the world to sit and listen to me. 

I am so grateful for the many good men in my life who make it easy to believe that I have a loving Father in Heaven who knows me, cares about me, and has my best interests in mind and to believe in a loving Savior who literally gave everything to save someone like me. 

This world seems to have a shortage of really good men, but here's a shout out to all of the good men I know, who have helped to shape me into the person I am today, and who give me hope for a wonderful future ahead.

Ashes and an Anniversary

Today is our TWO YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! Phew! We made it this far! ;)

It's only been 2 years but I look at this picture and I think "Babies!" We look so small!

I think I'll write another blog post tomorrow about what we did to celebrate our wedding anniversary, but I've been wanting to write about something else for a couple of years now and I've been waiting to write about it around our anniversary. 

Around the time we got engaged, we were trying to figure out all of our wedding plans. My parents lived in Texas, but my extended family all live in Northern Utah and Idaho (and Florida part of the year). Ryan's dad at the time lived in Southern Utah, and all of his extended family lived in Central Utah and Alaska. Figuring out the best and most convenient temple to get sealed in was a little difficult. 

One night, we were walking around the Provo City Center temple (because I was living in Provo going to BYU) and I told Ryan that I wanted to get sealed here. 

The story behind the Provo City Center Temple is SO cool to me. 

Before it was a temple, it was a beautiful, historic tabernacle that caught on fire and was destroyed. The outside was able to be preserved and from the inside out it was turned into a temple, a sacred house of the Lord. 

When I stood outside of the temple with Ryan thinking about marrying him, I knew I wanted it to be this temple because of it's story, it was a perfect fit for us. The tabernacle was beautiful. It was a great building with great purpose, but something happened and it burned down. It can be hard to see something so wonderful turn into something so awful, but God always has bigger plans that we can't always understand. He knew that the tabernacle was done with it's time just being a tabernacle, it needed to be destroyed so it could be rebuilt as something with greater purpose. 

It reminds me of that CS Lewis quote:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

Before meeting Ryan, it felt like Heavenly Father was messing up my plans and getting in my way. I made mistakes and I felt pain because of them. I went through my refiners fire, and so did Ryan. It took a lot of banging and bruising and wrong paths and right ones. Bad choices and good choices. I never wanted to serve a mission, but Heavenly Father pushed me in that direction. Ryan had his own struggles but was pushed in that direction as well. Sometimes it blows my mind all the tiny little details that went into Ryan and I meeting. Heavenly Father knows us so well.

I just feel like I had no idea what wonderful and beautiful plans God had in store for me, or what plans He has for my future still.

I love this picture because it's right as we are walking out of the doors of the temple after getting married, and look, Jesus is standing right behind us holding a lamb. I just think it is so symbolic of how He is looking out for us, and our marriage/family. 

When the tabernacle caught on fire, some people were upset that God would let something so horrible happen, but they had no idea that it would turn into the most beautiful and best temple in the world (in my totally unbiased opinion...) Now, it's a place where families can be sealed together forever, and I am SO SO grateful for that blessing.

Any opportunities to share my wedding pictures are opportunities I will take! This one is my very favorite.

Happy 2 years to us! I can't wait to see what the rest of eternity will bring.

#SOblessed

Merry Christmas From Us

I wanted to send out Christmas cards this year (if you are family and have not received one yet, don't fret, I'm still working on them, slowly but surely they will eventually all be sent out.) , but we don't have a printer and I don't plan on going to the library to print off a bunch of newsletters to go along with the cards, so I'm writing a blog post instead.

Plus, we love and care about so many people who don't fall into the family category but we are just poor college students who don't want to spend more than $20 on Christmas cards, sooooo here's your Christmas card. Just pretend it came in the mail with an envelope and a stamp. :)

2018 was quite the year for us! There have been a lot of wonderful changes!

Let's see, the year started with both Ryan and I in school. I finished up my last semester at BYU and graduated in April with a bachelors degree in Family Studies. I graduated when I was 8 months pregnant, and despite being a pretty small person, I think I was one of the largest people at the graduation ceremony! I'm pretty blessed to have so many people in my life that care about and support me. My parents flew up from Texas and Ryan's family came up from Southern Utah, all to sit through a long and boring graduation ceremony just for me! I originally just expected Ryan to come (and maybe not even him! He hates graduations!) so you can imagine my surprise when both sides of our family decided to come.

Ryan has been working hard, as always (he's the hardest worker I know). He works full-time in the Tire Shop at Sam's Club and comes home every day smelling like the tire shop and with arms covered in grease. (He's too excited to come home to see me to wash his hands thoroughly... but if you ask him, he'll claim their clean!) He's also working hard at school, this year he took Anatomy and we're hoping to be done with that for a while, because it's tough!

What a handsome guy! Even when he's throwing snowballs at me! 

Our last Christmas card blog post announced that we were having a baby, but this is the year that she actually came. :) Rose was born on May 24th, and took her sweet time coming (36 hours of labor later). She is almost 7 months old now, which we can hardly believe! She is the cutest little human being on the planet (no bias of course...) and we love her with every ounce in us. She's sitting up now, rolling over whenever she wants, and she's started eating solid foods. She thinks her mom and dad are the coolest people on the planet, and she wants to be around us ALL the time (I'm sure that will never change.)  She also likes to play with what we play with. My phone, the keys, and my water bottle are some of her favorite toys, and when I'm eating chocolate she wants to participate as well. (Thank goodness! I don't know what I'd do if I had a daughter that didn't like chocolate! It's in our blood!) Her dad is great at making her laugh, and I make her smile. We are the luckiest parents alive!

We are 100% smitten!

This year we went on a few fun trips: we camped at Goblin Valley and played hide and seek among the rock formations, we spent a week camping in Southern Utah with Ryan's family, a week at Lake Powell with my cousins, and then a week here in Central Utah with my parents, who came up for my brother's wedding.

We also moved into a new apartment. We wanted a bigger place so that Rose could have her own room, and we are all sleeping so much better because of it! And we live in a super cool house.

In the last few months, I decided I would apply to graduate school at BYU in their Marriage and Family Therapy program. We had a crazy couple of months while I met with professors for advice, studied for and took the GRE and found a job that gives me more experience. It's a pretty competitive program, so I'm not sure that I'll get in but either way I am looking forward to finding out how that goes. If anything, the new job I started at a residential treatment center for youth is pretty fun and gives me something new to do that also allows me to use my Family Studies degree a little bit.

2018 has been a busy, exciting, slightly exhausting, and fun year for us, and we're really looking forward to seeing what next year brings us. :)

Look at her already rolling her eyes at us. She'll have it perfected for sure by the time she's a teenager!

We wish everyone a very merry Christmas full of love, joy, and a spirit of Christ this season and in the years to come! We love ya'll! <3 The Vorkink Family