My turn on the Love Boat!

So as a young girl I watched "The Love Boat" every Saturday night. My mom would line my 2 sisters and I up in front of the tv to put pink sponge rollers in our hair that we would sleep in all night so that we would have curly pretty hair for Church on Sunday morning. So as a little girl with a weekly date with the Love Boat (I really wanted to be Julie McCoy) I could not help but dream about going on a cruise someday. When I got married I told Jake that a cruise was big on the dream list before our 10th anniversary. Well here it is the 10th anniversary of our engagement and I am going on a cruise. Yipee!
We leave a week from today. We are actually going with people from Jake's company and everyone's store that met its goals within the company is going. The best part ever is that my sister in law Valerie, and her husband (Jake's brother) Jed are going too. Val and I are good friends and our husbands have been known to be fun haters in the past, so when they are being poopy, we leave our husbands in their cabins with free room service and Val and I can go have fun. Plus my wonderful sister and mother in law are coming to take care of the boys so I know they will be happy and well taken care of while I am gone.
I seriously don't remember the last time I have been so excited! I must admit I have stayed up way too late, way too many nights, reading cruise reviews and happily planning with my sister in law about what we will do and what we will wear. I know that our rooms will probably be so small that we sleep on our suitcases and that I will probably gain 10lbs from the buffets and that I probably won't be able to actually kiss a dolphin but for right now I dream in ignorant bliss! So watch out Captain Stubing and Gopher and Doc- Here I come!

Bratty Beehive

So I was a bratty Beehive....and a bratty Mia Maid.... and pretty much a bratty Laurel too. In fact, at one point in my Young Womens career I even had a leader call me up and tell me that she was going to call the Bishop and ask for a release because of me. Didn't help matters much that the Bishop at that time was my dad.
I did have fantastic leaders in Young Womens and ones that I will always remember and love. So ever since I have been out of Young Womens, which I really think was just a few years ago but my current lack of coolness reminds me that it has indeed been 16 years?!?, anyways since then I have always thought that it would be really fun to work in the Young Womens program. Well it finally happened a moth ago and I was called as 1st Counselor for Young Women here in our ward in Puerto Rico. And of course out of years of waiting for this opportunity of course I would be called at the time in my life where it would be the most out of my comfort zone.
I am in a different culture and still struggling with the language. Especially teenage girls talk so fast that I swear that half the time I have no idea what they are saying and I know half of what I say makes no sense to them. Most of the girls come from broken homes and have some real issues that they are struggling with. Over the past month I have wondered if I could ever earn the girls trust or respect.
Well today I had my first celebratory breakthrough. I had 2 Laurels (ones that refuse to come to our weekly mutual) call me up today and ask me to help them make some chocolates for a school project. Looks like there may be hope for this bratty beehive after all....