New Condo!

Some of you have been asking about my condo situation. So here's the update. I bought a condo on Country Club and Brown. I felt really good about it and I got a pretty sweet deal. It's 1000 square foot, 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom. They are older condos but the new owner gutted them and replaced everything inside- the plumbing, electrical, floors, new appliances, countertops, and cabinets. I got it for 125,000 and compared to other condos listed for sale in Mesa this was around 20,000 dollars cheaper, and everything in mine is brand new. So I originally was going to get unit 101, but only because it was the last one. I didn't like how it was right out in the open by the sales office. I guess I felt vulnerable. So when I was signing the application for loan papers they sad two other ones opened up. Unit 143 is the one we switched into because it has all the stuff we wanted- cherry cabinets, charcoal colored countertops, black appliances, and the upgraded carpet. So I'm totally stoked about 143 as you can see cuz it has everything we wanted, it's already done, and cuz 1-4-3 means I love you! My estimated move in date is June 15th when the loan papers are approved. So I'm scrunched at Justin's house with 2 other guys in my room until then.














Saturday night we went out to celebrate the buying of the new condo at a really good Mexican restaurant called Rosa's with my awesome realtor Adam Lee. He's a newly wed from Pinetop. His little sister, Katrina knows Reed and Tami. I think Reed had a little thing going with her, but you can ask him about that. Small world though! Adam has totally hooked me up and has made the entire condo-buying process very smooth and pain free as possible. Woohoo 1-4-3 to all of you!

My date toLes Miserables

I was asked to go to the Play Les Miserables about a month in advance by a random boy named Aaron (short stuff- hee hee). The girls at work were all so excited I was going they all brought dresses and jewlry into work for me to try on through out the week before. I am in one of Karens dresses and all Anns jewlry. FUN! It was cute how they wanted to dress me up.
So here Aaron and I are in front of the cool sign. we couldn't get the top of the sign cuz it'd cut him off. HAA haa I'm kidding. but thats funny! He is a nice guy. Reminds me of Mitch Platt. The play was preformed at Gammage theater. I loved the play. The music was very good. The actors were amazing. I had a hard time folowing the story from time to time cuz I wasn't familiar with it. I want to watch it again. I think it will be even better the second time. It felt like prom a little cuz I made my RM Erin take pictures. So through out the date Aaron kept trying to get me to sing to him-right (he'd asked if I was in choir)! well at the end of the date he was walking me to my door and he all the sudden stops, grabs my hands (I thought he was gonna kiss me and I was freaking out) and says "well you wouldn't sing to me, but I'm gonna sing to you. You said Phantom was your favorite right?" and then proceeded to sing a whole song from Phantom of the opera to me on the side walk outside my apartment at 11:00 at night with people walking around. I didn't know what to do. so I just smiled.He was trying so hard. He had a pretty darn good voice. K so I was dying to laugh. so picture that. How flattering. It was a very nice thing for someone to do. really it was sweet. just not my cup of tea. My reaction was "Wow! I didn't expect that. Thank you. you have a nice voice." GOOD TIMES!!

more pictures!

Here is a picture is my whole group after dinner, and the pictures we got taken at prom( kinda funny), and me and Jayde- my beautiful best friend:)

PROM!

Okay I know its about time I put some pictures from prom! Lisa thanks for the friendly reminder:) So the first picture is every one getting ready here and that isnt even everyone, there were two more girls there but not in the picture, so we had quite the crowd but it was way fun! So that morning Ryne and the other boys in my group came to our house and woke me up and 4am and pulled me out of bed. I was quite confused because Ryne had called the night before and told me to be ready around 6;30, so he got me pretty good. So we all met up at the church and played glow in the dark baseball, and had hot chocolate, then went and ate breakfast, and I was home by 7 or so. Later that day I had a spa day at my student council sponsor's house, she had a masseuse come and everything, it was heavenly..... but went a little longer then expected to I was home a little late to start getting ready, which I apologize again to Becki for rushing you! You did a wonderful job tho! So Ryne came and picked me up, and had a lil' interview with Bret I guess, then we went to dinner, back for pictures at Rynes then on to the dance. I forgot to mention that the entire week leading up to Prom I had been decorating the Greer Community Center like crazy, but it ended up looking pretty beautiful, so it was all worth it. The dance was fun and I got Prom princess, Ross Eagar was prince and Hilary got dutchess... I dont think you guys know any of the other royalty. Any way I had so much fun! It was so great to have Bret, Becki and Lisa all here, you guys were so much help I really appreciate it! Love you tons!

Tami where are your prom pictures??

you should post your prom pics i'm pretty sure! love l.r.c.

Spiked hair

Gi-Normous Post!

Hi family o' mine! Ya this is the mother load o' pictures. We've been doing lots o' fun stuff that we haven't put on here recently. So, pop some popcorn, get comfortable, and get ready to learn all about the recent events o' the life o' Bret and Becki!

This last weekend we drove up to Camp LoMia right outside o' Payson for the annual ward campout. My favorite part was when Prez Strong o' my Stake Presidency first gave an AMAZING fireside about the law o' chastity. Then we had a little Ho Down and then watched Brian Regan's standup comedy until like 2 in the morn. Hilarious! We had to come home early the next day to meet Jan the sales agent about my condo. We might be switching units.


















































Ok, next we have here pictures from the weekend before. Becki and I met Mom, Dad, and Reed at Roosevelt. The lake was PERFECT. Mom hooked it up with tons o' food o' course. Becki's little rat, I mean dog Je Suis came along and had fun in the sun riding the tube with us. I beat up Reed and tried to land a Tantrum....but that wasn't as easy as taking down my skinny little bro.











































































These next pics are from when we went to Eagarville for Tami's Prom. Becki is so AWESOME cuz she spent like 4 hours doing Tami and her friends' hair, which all looked gorgeous. Tami looked beautiful and won Prom Princess o' course. Great weather in Eagar- good times.































A few weeks ago Becki's sister Missi came down from Utah to visit and brought my most favorite little blonde girls Brookley and Halley. We got some pizza and went to Riverview park to play. I might have gotten a little carried away myself playing on the jungle gym.

Hey Mark, you need to hook our family up with a cute little niece....SOON.
























































Becki LOVES animals so I took her to the Wildlife Zoo. There were like a ka-zillion animals and so we took a ka-zillion pictures o' all o' them. My favorite were the 10 inch long black tongued licking giraffes and my favorite animals ever....White Tigers. Becki loved the petting zoo and the petting zoo loved Becki.

HOLA FAMILIA!!

Naomi Slade also got her call yesterday... she is going to Hong Kong, China and is speaking Cantanese!! Let's just say that I'm so glad it's her and not me!!


Well, what can I say!? I am so so super excited that I will be serving in the Los Angeles California Temple Visitors' Center!!! It is a way pretty temple. It is way big too- 13 acres, there are 10 sealing rooms and 4 progressive-style ordinance rooms, and the total floor area is 190,614 feet! It is one of the older temples - it was dedicated in 1951. So, if any of you feel like coming to California, be sure to come to the temple and I will give you a tour, I hope you don't mind it being in Spanish though! I am way excited that I will be speaking Spanish- what a dream come true!! I think I seriously got the perfect mission though- I get to proselyte still and do the temple and still learn a language without having to suffer some un-ideal circumstances! I get the best of both worlds! I talked to a girl whose sister served in that exact same mission and she said every few transfers they go to the temple, so I won't even be there most of the time. My area also covers Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Malibu, Hollywood, and of course LA- pretty ritzy areas! My mission President is from Mesa and he looks way nice. I don't report until September 6, but that will be good because I will get to spend some time at home after EFY. Anyways, I am way excited and I feel so good about it- I know that this is my mission and is where the Lord wants me!

If you want to keep reading I will tell you about my day yesterday when my call came....

They told me the mail came at 1:30ish, so I checked it at 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, and lastly at 3:00. After opening the mailbox the 4th time and seeing it empty, I thought that I was going to cry. Instead of feeling the disappointment again of an empty mailbox, I decided to just sit and wait for the mailman! so I plopped down on the curb and patiently(?) waited for him. He came about 15 minutes later. Right when he stepped out of his van I approached him and told him that I had been waiting for him allllll day and was wondering if he happened to have a big white envelop from SLC for me. When I spotted it on top I got really excited!! So I got it hand delivered to me- that was fun! AND something crazy... while I was waiting between 1:00 and 3:00, I was writing in my journal and these are the exact words I wrote. "My gut feeling is that I am staying in the states and that I will stay on the West coast... California, Washington, Oregon or Nevada- one of those"- Ya, so I totallly called it!! Mom and dad both guessed spanish speaking, so I guess they called it too! Anyways, it was such a wonderful day yesterday- a day I will never forget!!

I Love New York!!

Despite my dislike of hot dogs, I decided that I couldn't fully have a New York experience without eating one from a street vender. It was surprisingly good!

Eating a delicious Frrrrozen hot chocolate at Serendipitiy's resturaunt (just like in the movie!) - WAY better than Dairy Queen's mom! You would love it!
Central park is a huge park right smack in the middle of the city- it is a very welcome open space among all the buildings and streets!
On top of the Empire State Building- the view was breath-taking with all the lights
The streets of Little Italy
The Manhatten Temple/ stake center - the only temple whose grounds has a hot dog stand!
Striking a pose right in the middle of Times Square- probably one of the busiest/craziest places in NY
See the statue of liberty in the back?! So gorgeous up close!

Well I can now say that I have taken a bite out of the big apple! My trip to New York City was amazing! I did pretty much everything in the 5 days that I was there. We went to the Empire state building, the statue of liberty/Ellis Island, a broadway show (Wicked), the Metropolitian museum of art, the rockerfeller center, central park, Serendipity, Macy's (the world's largest store), Manhatten Temple, China town, Little Italy, ground zero ... you name it and I'm sure that we did it! We started early in the morning everyday and finished late at night. We honestly wore ourselves completly out each day, but I loved it! We went to a lot of appointments with people/businesses relating to fashion, interior design, and textiles, all of which were super cool, and educational too. Our (when I say "our" I am refering to the 25 girls who went, well 24 girls and 1 boy!) hotel was right smack in the middle of Time Square so that was about as New Yorky as you could get! Everything in New York is fast paced and rushed and the streets are covered completly with people and hot dog stands. There are so many interesting people and smells, it's hard to soak it all in. We walked everywhere and took the subway a lot and I also got to ride in my first taxi (the drivers in NY are Crazy!) We shopped until we dropped (Lisa you would love the shopping there- it is amazing!) Luckily we had our own personal tour guide, otherwise we would've been completly lost because NY is HUGE!! Anyways, I had a fabulous time and I made so many wonderful friends and wonderful memories- Definitley a once in a lifetime experience and definitely worth every cent! There's too much to tell, but I'm sure I'll tell you each about it when I talk to you soon! Enjoy some of the many pics that I took!

ENS Crosby reporting for active duty

So, I'm required to do at least 45 days of active duty every year. Liz, a fellow Navy officer and classmate of mine, drove to Roanoke, VA early this morning to report for duty in our dress blues. Our orders this year are school orders, which means that I get paid active duty salary to study for my board exam, pretty sweet deal.

Latest from WV

Saturday we had a falconry Elder's Quorum activity with the folks affiliated with the Greenbrier resort. It was very cool watching the big hawks swoop down and eat chicken and chase fake rabbits and to hold them. Kaemon has learned how to point to my nose and say "no" when I ask him "where is daddy's nose?" and he can point to my ears when I ask him where my ears are, but he still can't say that one...it's harder.