Month of May

I am so happy that winter is now done with. I feel confident enough to say that because the average temperature for the past 2 weeks has been about 65.. I think that means springtime. Also the trees are starting to get leaves and the grass is green(real green even!)
This is what our May has looked like:
Riding horses- I'm actually starting to become more comfortable and less tense when I ride. Rhen still hasn't come out to ride, but he promised me that next time he would!
Playing Softball- We got to play softball with the youth and it was so much fun! We didn't have enough people to make two whole teams so we all just rotated positions and batted. They have a nice little softball field and the weather was perfect. I really just want to go outside and play sports every day, but I don't feel like we would have enough willing participants..
Getting pulled over- This was so bad! I hate getting pulled over. The police officer was so nice though, and he just gave me a warning. My visiting teaching companion and I were somewhat lost and confused because we couldn't find one of our ladies houses(even though we had  been there twice already!) so I was driving around and took a corner wacko and then he pulled me over. I just felt so frazzled! I couldn't find any of my information, but he still let me go and just told me to put in my car when I got home. So thank you Mr. forgiving police man!
Bruises- I am so bruised up, from softball and from running my leg directly into the table at church and from riding horses. It hurts to move!
Temple- Rhen and I got to serve in the temple this weekend and Rhen was able to do 100 confirmations, it was so nice! The temple grounds had beautiful tulips everywhere and we saw 3 wedding groups! I love springtime at the temple!
Anyway that's pretty much all, we are hoping to go camping soon though!

It's coming, I can almost see it

Spring is almost here! I can feel it! Wednesday when it snowed 4 more inches, I saw little sprouts of greenish colored grass! Now that it has melted it all looks sort of less vibrant, but I'll take what I can get! Yay!

In other news, I've been sick :(. Not horribly so, but still enough to make my head hurt with congestion and make me really fatigued.
Short post, but at least I am posting!

Alice in Existentialist Horror-Land

I have lots of good and bad things to say about this subject! First of all... I HATE IT! Haha Okay, that sounds all bad, but I also have good memories of it.
When I was a kid I watched the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland and it absolutely terrified me. It felt like when she escaped, she didn't really physically escape but escaped into her mind. Essentially it was a mind-warp where maybe Wonderland was the real place and England was all in her head. How very existentialist of my young self to be, but that is actually what scared me the most. And because of all the weird creepy things. I suppose by this logic The Wizard of Oz should've scared me too, and it did a little, but not for the same reasons(mostly for the flying monkeys.)
 Then when I was in grade school I saw the LBCC theater group perform it.. I don't really remember much about it. Recently I've gotten over the fear, and evolved to exhaustion over the subject. Alice in Wonderland is the hipster of the Disney movies. That and all the Tim Burton movies.. Which I even kind of like the Tim Burton movies, but (and maybe this makes me a hipster..) I don't like how everyone obsesses over them so much. I just don't understand why there is like 15 different versions of Alice in Wonderland.. And they are still coming! My favorite show is Once Upon a Time and even the producers of that are planning a spin-off: Once upon a Wonderland or something like that (which I will probably still watch devotedly because I am a very avid fan of all things Once).
Anyway that is the part that I don't like, but like I said there is good in me too! When Jeanie and I were in Albany we went to the library all the time and we checked out these Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/beyond the looking glass books that had pictures and basically summarized the actual book by Lewis Carrol and gave insight into why he wrote the things he did, and that was very interesting! Those were pretty cool books...
Also in High School I was in the musical Alice in Wonderland playing the body of the Chesire Cat. I actually have really great memories from this, because I was really able to get out of my shell and express myself because of that opportunity. I'm really glad that I didn't chicken out or anything. So that's a positive thing!
Then the thing which actually triggered this rant on AiW was that last night for Young Women's we watched the High School musical version of AiW. One of our young women was in the play, so it was basically me and the other girl watching her haha. She played the Daisy and the Baby. You know- the baby that is actually a pig who lives with the Duchess. It was interesting how the two plays varied so much, this one was actually more accurate to what happened in the book. But it was also... interesting. Haha, it is so fun to watch young people doing something they love! It makes me want to go back and relive things so I could do more activities, but it also makes me glad that I'm not in HS anymore. I'm a very conflicted person you see ;).
These are some things I really enjoyed about it:
The Caterpillar! His costume was AWESOME! He was wearing a purple sleeping bag with stuffed gloves sewed onto the sides for extra arms. I laughed really hard at that.
The Duchess! Her costume was great too, she had this snazzy purple dress and crazy-huge headdress that look very heavy.
Just the atmosphere in general. Of course the acting wasn't top-notch but it was fun to watch and see them try their hardest!
And that is my Hate-like relationship with Alice.

I miss Oregon

Well it snowed. I wasn't that surprised that it snowed because the weather is rather unpredictable here, but I was surprised at the quantity of snow we got.

This is what our area looked like this weekend

Then on Monday this is what I woke up to:

That ruler is measuring 9 inches in the morning. They measured it later that afternoon and they were up to 11 inches. Tuesday the weather wasn't horrible, so we were able to clean up all the snow on the sawmill area and start processing things again, then Wednesday came and it was like a flash blizzard! Okay maybe the people around here wouldn't call it such, but to me it was a blizzard. There was a ton of snow dumped on us, at least another 7-8 inches and lots of wind! We didn't work much yesterday because it was pretty impossible to keep the snow off everything. When we went upstairs and looked out the windows the visibility was terrible! I could only see maybe 15 feet in front of me, which makes me grateful that I don't ever have to drive to work. Today the sun is out again, but I can't help but feel like shoveling is pointless when the weather is teasing us like this. It stops snowing just long enough to clear everything off and then the next day pours it back down.. Sigh...
Meanwhile in Oregon:

I want to see beautiful colors... Everything is so brown or way too bright white. I think my cornea's are burning up because of the sun reflecting off the sun- everything looks green and dark when I come inside.. I also got a sunburn on Tuesday!
But I shouldn't complain about the brown, I'm starting to see the beauty in it as well. Any color is better than the snow.

P.S. I miss getting letters! If you feel like it would be weird to write to me, then stop feeling like that! I want to here about all your lives and see more fun pictures! I haven't fallen off the face of the earth completely I promise! Rhen misses you all too, so don't forget about him ;)

Some interesting observations..

Colorado is funny! Here are some silly things I've noticed...
Every Kody I've met here spells his name with a K. I've met like 3! 2 Kody's and 1 Kodi, and they are all men. I thought Kodi was a girls name... Hmm..
Everyone who I introduce myself to calls me Melissa at least twice before remembering my real name.
A lot of the young guys(early 20's-30's) call me Ma'am, it's very nice! 
In Colorado it's either clear blue skies, no real clouds in sight or it's snowing. That's only semi true because yesterday it sort of rained and snowed at the same..
There are no mail boxes! There may be some some where, but not here. Only PO Boxes..

Twiddling my Thumbs

I'm having a really difficult time.. I am going to try to keep you guys updated without bringing you down, so I will try to have good things to say sometime soon. As for now, if you want to know what's going on feel free to call us, read LJ, e-mail, or send us a letter!

Talents

Look at this! I was just called into young women about a month ago and it has been a lot of fun getting to know the girls. They are all so talented! Check out this youtube video drawn by one of my girls!