What the World Eats

These Pictures were taken by a photographer Peter Menzel and are in his book The Hungry Planet: What the World Eats
He found families from all over the world had them buy an average weeks worth of groceries and displayed them as you see below!

La familia Mendoza- 7 people $75.70 per week for groceries- From Guatemala

The Patkars- 4 people $39.27 per week- From India

The Natomos- 15 people $26.39 per week- From Mali

The Melansons- 5 people $345.00 per week- From Canada

The Celiks 6 people $145.88 per week- From Turkey

UTAH STATE AGGIES

Last night Nate and I went to the Aggie Basketball game vs. Nevada. They won to advance to 21-2 and 10-0 in the WAC!

We are pumped because we bought tickets last week to the WAC tourny in Vegas over Spring Break! We love watching the Aggies and the Spectrum has the best fans! Watch two of our favorite chants!

Winning Team, Losing Team

I Believe that We Will Win!
(Stew's Favorite)

GO AGGIES!

This could be Fun!

Today I practiced my first triathlon... and it was exciting! I was pretty tired by the end, and I only did 300yd swim, 2 mile bike and a 1 mile run! I have a little ways to go, but I could see myself getting into this. The real tri that I am working towards is on February 12!  I 400yd swim, 6mile bike, and 2 mile run!
  As far as other races on the horizon both Nate and I have this:

I am sure glad it is the HALF, I am quite enjoying my retirement from Marathons! I am excited for this race because so many of our family and friends will be doing it! And I am pretty sure Nate will rock it!
 Also on the horizon is RAGNAR!!! Wahoo! June 18-19

 After that the possibilities are endless.. any ideas?!

The Lloyds are Alive (contrary to what our blog activity would say...)

So we have had some really good times lately, and we have taken some fun pics, so I want to post some.

 I ran the St.George Marathon in Oct. Loved all 26.2 of it! I had great support to cheer me on!

                                                                 Disneyland Bandits!

 We enjoyed a fun family trip to Newport back in August! Crazy to think of warm sunny beaches now!
I was impressed at Nate's surfing skills!

                                         Fun Weekend at the cabin with friends! It was beautiful!

                                          My friend Sara hosted a fabulous 1920's murder mystery dinner for
                                           our Halloween fun! Scoop and Socks here. Love the cigar.

                                            Chicago Style pizza, stuffed crust, 1 hour 45 min wait
                                                                           SWEET!

                                                 Go Utes! We all made the fun weekend trip to Chicago/South Bend
                                                    to cheer on the Utes. It was a sad game but GREAT trip!
                                                  The mural behind us is called Touchdown Jesus... enough said.

                                         Nate turned 25 on Nov. 22! Yea. He is the best husband!
                                         Happy Birthday Huns!
Well I hope you enjoyed. Hope it wasn't too exhausting recapping some of the highlights of our last four months!

The Spirit of Christmas

Christmas is a time for hope and joy.  We have great reason to rejoice in the many blessings we have been givin.  We also have the hope of the future and the hope in Christ.  It is because of him that we are here on earth experiencing life.  Sometimes our trials seem huge, but I have found that as I look around me I am deeply humbled by the quiet faith of others who have been asked to endure far more then I have to this point in my life.  They are seemingly ordinary people, who have extra-ordinary faith.  They truely emulate the light of Christ. I want to write briefly about two women I have met this semester that have helped me to brighten my outlook on life and count my blessings.
The first women is in my History class with me.  We ended up sitting by each other the first day because we are both lefties.  We took the two lefty desks in the front and started chatting.  It just kind of worked out that we always sat by each other from then on.  It has been great to get to know her, and I have learned a lot from our before and after class chats.  I never see her any other time, and I only have one class time left, and I might not see her again. She has taught me about the power of making the most of the little things in life.  I am not sure on her age, but she is a single mother (recently divorced).  She has a 20 yr old daughter, sons 16 and 14.  She loves her boys, and frequently tells me stories about them.  They live in a little apartment together.  Her daughter lives in Texas where she ran away with her boyfriend.  This is so hard on my friend.  She has a little grandson, but the boyfriend doesn't allow the daughter to see her family so my friend has only seen her grandson once.  She was just going to get an admissions packet to send to her daughter with her Christmas package to try to get her to come to school and improve her life. She works and goes to school, and then takes care of her boys.  At night she sometimes has time for homework. She is an example to me. I hope and pray that her family has a Merry Christmas!

The other woman I don't know as well, but her story has stayed with me.  Her husband left their family a year ago, and left her to tend and provide for six young kids.  She had been married young and had never finished school. She was able to recieve a scholarship from the CAPSA foundation(which is for abused women) and is now studying here at Utah State to be a nurse.  She took the time to ask me all about my education, my family, and where I was from one night as we volunteered at the Hope Festival.  I was instantly impressed with her geniuine interest in my life.  She emulated the light of Christ.  That was about two months ago and I just saw her on campus! It was great to chat for just a minute. Her kids are all sick this week, just as she is getting ready to take finals.  Again I felt that pang in my heart as she smiled and said that everything would work out. I hope and pray that she and her family will have a Merry Christmas!


I know there are so many out there who are asked to endure hard trials, and sometimes it is unbearable, but it seems that you are the strong ones.  Thank you for being who you are, and being such examples to me! Merry Christmas to everyone!

Too Late King George!

Love This Video

Reunited

So last Saturday the Mexis (or whatever we call ourselves) were reunited after 2 years of being apart!!! We all became friends at USU our Freshman year, where we spent almost all of our time together! We had sleepovers, long talks, hikes, meeting boys, you know everything freshmen girls love to do.  We are all studying/ have studied different things, and we all have so many different interests! Yet, these girls are FUN!!! When we get together it is non-stop energy and laughing. After Freshmen year we stayed friends some of us were roommates, but we started to go different ways. Soon enough some of us were getting engaged, and three went on missions.  Our lives are about as different as we are, but the good times are still there!

This was all of us together at Christmas in 07

2008 was the year of the missions,study abroads.

2009 was the year Brittles and I got married

2010 Erika, Ali, and Bree came home from missions, Brit Watts got her mission call to Ukraine (she leaves in two weeks), and Jen got married!

So last week we dragged the husbands and significant others (they are good sports) to our reunion, and it was such a great night!

September 2010!

And yes... we still do these pyramid things