Cancun

The view from our room of the hotel pool & beach.

Xel-Ha, which is pronounced Shell Ha (must be whispered)


Leaving Cancun

Xel-Ha

Sweet sweet hammocks on the beach

Our hotel

My idea of the perfect vacation:

It's Love

It's Love

Our Halloween Party

We had a really fun Halloween party on Tues. Oct 28th. I counted 56 people there, good thing we moved :)

Happy Halloween!!

I was a witch and Dave was my broom at our Halloween party on Tuesday. We have a different costume for tonight's family party.

Frightmares

We are going to Frightmares tonight with Trinity & Andrew and I am super excited!!

Media Fast

So on Sunday, Bishop Fowers offered a challenge to all ward members to take part in a 2 week Media Fast. That means you can only listen to, watch, and read what a missionary is allowed. I debated whether or not to try it out because I love TV, but in the end I decided it was a worthy goal. 4 days into it I'm feeling very good, I've gotten so much more done, I've been happier, Dave and I have gotten along better, I'm more in tune with the Spirit, and I feel much more inclined to be a good person. The negatives, none. (I consider blogging ok because it's a journal, which missionaries are required to write in). It was weird driving in silence at first so I downloaded some General Conference sessions that I've thoroughly enjoyed listening to. It's funny because I drive around all teary eyed because I can feel the Spirit of the great men and women speaking. I'm actually totally psyched for General Conference this weekend, and not just because we get to stay home from church which is why I'm usually excited. The Bishop chose these 2 weeks because they are the weeks surrounding Conference. Our Bishop is so great, I love him and his counselors so much! Dave and I also have the best calling. We are ward missionaries. Sounds lame, but we choose to think of ourselves as "Super Friends." Our calling is basically to be friends with everyone in the ward, all my dreams come true. We got to go meet 2 new couples this week at their homes and they were both so nice and so fun. I'm so excited about our new friends that we probably would have never met otherwise. So wish me luck with the Media Fast and feel free to join in if you'd like. This really is the best kind of fast because you still get to eat tasty treats!

Work is great

So, I really like being a hygienist. It's physically demanding, yet still enjoyable. It's fun to chat with all of my patients and get to know them a little better. I had a really hard patient today that totally humbled me, but that's good because it was probably much needed. I'm really glad to just work 4 days/week because by Thursday I'm pretty much beat, but the money would be nice if I did pick up another day.

We've Moved!

So we moved into our home about 3 weeks ago, and so far so good. This place has felt like home from the 1st time we walked through it. It's funny because we looked at and considered buying tons of other houses, but none of them felt right like this one did. I'm pretty much done unpacking, but I can't make myself hang any decor since we are going to be redoing the whole house. It doesn't look that great right now, but I'm ok with it. I've been loving fall so far. It's my favorite time of year because I love the fall colors, smells, weather, and of course Halloween. I don't have a costume idea yet, but I'm definitely going to start thinking about it.

We're Moving!!

We found out 2 days ago that our offer on our dream house was accepted. We will be moving in 1 month to a huge 5 bedroom, 3 bath, 4800 square foot house in Shadow Valley. We are so excited, but mostly just so busy getting the old house ready to be sold and making plans for the new one.

Mycoplasma Pneumonia

The name sounds scary, but trust me...The symptoms are way worse. On Sunday night I almost lost my voice completely. Of course, this doesn't slow me down, I worked in misery all day Monday & Tuesday. Today I woke up and decided I couldn't take the sore throat, coughing, and malaise anymore, so I went to work to tell them I was sick, ended up seeing my first 2 patients, went home and passed out for 3 hours, then it was off to the doctor. They can't positively identify what I have until the blood test results come back in 5 days, but due to the symptoms and the prevalence in the community, my doctor is pretty certain it's Mycoplasma Pneumonia, also knows as "walking pneumonia." The good news is that I was only contagious for the first 48 hours, the bad news is Dave has already contracted the illness. So for now I'm on antibiotics and Tussin Pearls to help with the coughing. I miss feeling healthy.

Thanks Brittany!!

My sister-in-law Brittany took all of these pics of my nephew Charlie on Friday. I tried to pick my favorite one to post, but I love them all! Thank you so much Britt for the fun times and great photos. You're the best!! The last pic is my sister Marianne holding her sweet little baby.

Dark Knight & Mamma Mia

A week ago we went and say The Dark Knight & Mamma Mia. I loved both of these movies.


I'm wasn't really into Batman movies, but I'm converted. Heath Ledger played an amazing Joker. He totally creeped me out. Although the movie is 2 1/2 hours long, it went by fast. The plot was really good and it kept me entertained the entire time.

Mamma Mia is just so funny. Every time they break out into song and dance you can't help but laugh. I loved the music. I didn't really realize until someone pointed it out to me, but the main girl in the movie was the ditzy friend on Mean Girls. She looks totally different to me.

San Fran June 2008

Dave surprised me by booking a trip to San Francisco as an early anniversary gift. Since we met at a blind date to Kenny Chesney it is a tradition that we go to his concert every year. Unfortunately, Kenny wasn't with us on that plan because he decided not to come to Utah this year, Boo. It turned out alright though because we got to go see Mar, Josh, & Charlie and go to the concert. Mar & Josh are awesome hosts and showed us all over the city. They introduced us to cool new restaurants and took us down the curviest street (Lombard Street as shown below). It was such a fun vacation!!The concert was ok, but I have to say that concerts in Utah are much better. Dave saw someone smoking weed for the first time in his life. It was funny because no one really seemed to care at first that he just lit up in front of everyone at a busy concert. We saw a crazy girl fight. All of the toilets at Giants Stadium were out of order so everyone was just going without flushing, yuck!! We had awesome seats that were really close to the cat walk so we got to see Kenny up close. Kenny Chesney is a good performer, he totally plays to the crowd.

Lava Hot Springs July 4, 2008

So for the 4th of July this year we headed to Lava Hot Springs to swim and tube the river as we traditionally do. This year was extra fun because the Hall's (Dave's sisters family) joined us. We swam in the big pool the first day. Dave, Nick, and Brittany all went off the highest platform, Dave even did a gainer. Scary. I don't dare do stuff like that. We camped out that night and had lots of fun talking and playing. The next day we tubed down the river which is always a family favorite. There were so many people there this year, it was out of control, but fun. Even my niece Bailey (6) and nephew Owen (2) went down the river. They were little troopers. Of course it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Unfortunately for Brittany, she's the one that got hurt. There's a dangerous spot in the river that you usually fall off at unless you're holding on to someone's tube. We were all holding on to each other, but somehow Britt tipped over backwards and hit her head really hard. We all jumped out of the river ASAP and Dave went for help. We ended up not being able to find any medical personnel so we had to call 911. They ended up taking her to the hospital 25 minutes away via ambulance. 3 staples and lots of morphine later, she was ready to go home. Dave & Joni

Christy & Kenny

Owen

The Story Of My Sweet 4 Runner

So, I'm trying to be good about keeping this blog as a journal of milestones in my life, but I'm really bad at it which is why I usually blog about a year after an event occurs. I'll try to get caught up so that my posts will be more current.



















One milestone event in my life is when I got my brandnew 4Runner. Dave and I had been talking about what I wanted to drive once I graduated. We had planned to get me a sweet car for graduation and since Dave is in the car business he loved to talk about what kind of car I would get. I decided a year before I graduated that I would want a 4Runner upon graduating. So back on March 8, 2007 Dave told me to come into the dealership to look at different colors so that I could start deciding which color I liked best. When I got there he showed me a silver 4Runner on the showroom floor with a big bow on it. He was like, "What do think about this one?" I of course loved it, but there was a big sold sign on it so I said, "I don't want to get in it if it's sold." He assured me that it was fine. I told him that it was my dream car and that I would probably want one just like it in a year. That's when he showed me the key chain that said "Joni's 4Runner." Dave has a long history of playing tricks on me, such as the time he gave me huge "diamond" earrings for Christmas complete with an official appraisal from Fred Meyer Jewelers and told me they were real, so there was no way I could believe he bought me a brand new 4Runner.I know I pretty much look gorgeous in this pic, but notice how happy I am because I still thought they were real. Silly me. Don't worry, I got Dave back the next Christmas by giving him my charm bracelet and explaining how each and every charm was thoughtfully picked out just for him. He didn't know what to do because he hated it but didn't want to hurt my feelings. Ha Ha!
Anyway, I tried not to be excited about the 4Runner because I figured all of his coworkers were in on it and I didn't want to look too stupid like I do in the picture above. I was finally forced to believe Dave as I went into finance to sign all of the papers and the finance manager assured me that she wouldn't have gone to all of this work for a silly prank. So a year and a half later, I'm still driving and loving my 4Runner. So much for waiting for graduation. That husband of mine is the greatest, I love him so much!

Dam Days

Sweet little nephew Owen!! Not really a fan of the water, but he sure loves his mom. By the end he was riding on the waverunner just to be with his mom and away from me.
Trinity (my sister-in-law) and I. We had so much fun. She's a boater at heart, crazy on the tube. Me? Not so much, but I do enjoy riding on the boat.

Christy wasn't able to join us due to work, but I'm glad Kenny came.

The Powell family is so great. I'm so happy that I married into such an amazing family. I couldn't have dreamed there was such a great family out there that could match the greatness of the James' fam.

Sweet niece Baily. It took all of my air to blow up this silly water wing, but I told her I would do it to show her how much I love her, which is a lot! She is seriously the sweetest girl ever. I think I'm going to let Brittany raise my kids so they can be so polite. Good job Britt. Thank goodness Trinity was there to blow up the other one like 10 times faster.

We went to the dam last week (twice) and it was so fun!! Thanks Holly for bringing your sweet boat. Thanks Becky for bringing the sweet treats. And thanks mosquitos for the 10 sweet bites that are now scabs all over my arms and legs, Boo!

On Achieving Goals

So, I've worked since I was 14 to become a Dental Hygienist. Well, 10 years later, I'm 24 and I'm a Dental Hygienist. I can officially say my name and title: Joni J. Powell, BS, RDH. It's crazy to think how hard I worked to get to where I am today. Would I do it again? No. Was it totally worth it? Yes.
I can't even think about what it would be like to have to study for another test or try to find another poor schmuck to let me clean their teeth without having a major panic attack.

My School Story:

I started at WSU in August of 2002. I took a series of random general courses such as economics and accounting just to make sure that I really did want to be a hygienist. Sure enough, hygiene was for me. I worked as a dental assistant for Dr. Talbot for 3 years prior to starting hygiene school. I worked full time by day and went to school full time by night. Upon starting hygiene I had to quit in order to focus ALL of my time and ALL of my efforts. Everyone says that hygiene will break you down to tears frequently, but I thought I was too strong for that. I guess I was wrong, it only took a month for me to be completely humbled by school. I feel like I was totally blessed the entire way through school; otherwise, I wouldn't have made it. I met so many cool new friends while in school who taught me a lot about real life and about myself. I met some of the best people I've ever known and I've met some of the worst kinds of people I've ever known. Both types have taught me life lessons. I hate life lessons!! Through all of the joy and tears I was able to accomplish my ultimate goal of becoming a dental hygienist. I found out while on my cruise that I had passed the clinical board and I was officially qualified for licensure. On June 2, 2008 my dental hygiene license became active and I started work on June 4.

I work full time, which in the dental community means 4 days a week, for Dr. Talbot. He is so great, he held a couple of days for me since September 2007 and the other couple of days since March. I'm so thankful that he is so kind and generous. The 1st month working was ridiculously hard! I pretty much hated my life. I went from having 3 hours at school to see one patient, to having 40 minute appointments booked solid with no break from 7am-1pm and then from 2pm-4pm. That's 13 patients in 8 hours. It makes me tired just thinking about it. I have to just take it one patient at time to avoid becoming overwhelmed. It's been 6 weeks and I think I finally have a handle on things. As long as I don't get behind on a morning appointment, I should be fine the rest of the day. Getting my first paycheck was awesome! That's the moment I said to myself, "Ok, I guess it was all worth it."

Dear Brodie & Stacey,

Thanks for not inviting me to view your blog. I set out to post just for you Brodie, but now this is all you get.

Happy 3 year anniversary love!

To Dave,
I love you tons!! This has been a great 3 years, I've loved every day of it. You are the cutest hubby in all the world, I'm so thankful to be married to you. I wish that we didn't have to work so that we could have spent the day together, but Tepanyaki should be delicious tonight and I'm excited to see you. Thanks for all of your love and support, I wouldn't be where I am today without you by my side. I seriously feel like the luckiest girl alive to be married to you.
Love, Joni

We Loved San Fran

We love our nephew Charlie & I think Charlie loves us. Dave packed Charlie around at Fisherman's Wharf in the Bjorn, it was so cute. I love Charlie's Old School San Francisco Native shirt seen on the right.

Christy's Wedding

Konner & Charlie meeting for the first time. They were born 10 days apart which is fun because Marianne & Tesha have been best friends their whole lives.

Here's To 4 More Years

Today is the official 4 year anniversary of the day I met the love of my life. Time flies, yet it seems like forever ago, weird. So how Dave and I met that fateful June 11, 2004... I was supposed to go to a Kenny Chesney concert with my friend Autumn, but she had a big test the next morning so she was trying to get out of going. So my friend Mindy agreed to go with me, but backed out at the last minute because she "didn't have any clean pants." That was a really weird and lame excuse (sorry Mind, it was) so I was pretty sad. Autumn and I then decided to drive to Usana Amphitheater to sell the tickets. When I went to pick up Autumn she told me that she had made other plans to go wave running with Brad and Dave. I was kind of confused because I thought she was staying home from the concert, but whatever. So as we drove to the concert she called Dave to cancel wave running because "we have to go sell these Kenny Chesney concert tickets." Turns out all of Dave's friends were at the concert but they didn't have a ticket for him so he really wanted to go to the concert. He said, "I'll go to the concert." Autumn said, "You and Joni can go together." Dave of course asked the typical blind date question, "Is she cute?" Since Autumn's a good friend she said, "Yes, she's hot, you'll love Joni, etc." Thanks Autumn!! We drove straight to the Riverdale Target parking lot where we first laid eyes on each other. Dave was driving his parents green Mercedes which was good in my eyes, I was kind of a gold digger back then, oops! When he got out of the car he wasn't very tall (he's only a 1/2 inch taller than me). He had a blue tooth headset in his ear which I hate, it just made it look like he was trying to be cool, which later I found out was exactly the plan. Autumn stripped out of her cowboy shirt and belt and gave them to Dave to wear to the concert and we were off. Dave was such a charmer. I loved everything about him, but it took a minute to get used to each other's personalities. I laughed the whole way there. Not one awkward moment, that's when I knew it was love. I hate awkward pauses. When we arrived at the concert and started walking through the parking lot, he grabbed my hand and said, "Let's just get this over with so we can enjoy the rest of the night." I agreed. It felt so natural yet so exciting to be holding his hand. We had stopped at Shopko on the way to buy a blanket, 2 ponchos in case of rain, tootsie rolls, and stinky feet gummies. When we got to the gate they said, no food allowed, so Dave, trying to impress me with his honesty, started throwing away all of our treats. I, being myself, tried to whisper "not the stinky feet," because they were hidden in the blanket, but Dave threw them away too. We still laugh about how he really didn't want to throw away the candy but he didn't want me to think less of him for wanting to sneak it in, silly Dave. We missed all of the opening bands and the GA area was packed with people that had been there since noon staking out a good spot. We just walked up to the very front and center of GA and ran into Betsy Martineau and her friends. We stood with them the rest of the night and had a great view. We cuddled and danced to the music and had the best time. It didn't even feel like we had just met because I was so comfortable having Dave's arm around me. Meant to be!! Dave took me home and came in even though it was late to watch my Skydive video because I had just gone the week before and he was planning to go the next day. Luckily Mar was in town still (they moved to Cali shortly after that) and she got to meet him that very first night. We didn't want to leave each other so he stayed over pretty late chatting.
The next day I went to watch him sky dive. Turns out I was more in love with him then he was with me. It took him some time to come around, but it was worth the wait.
I love you hubby!! Thanks for making these last 4 years amazing!
Dave said to me earlier, "I hope we have 4 more wonderful years together." Um, I'm pretty sure you can only say that at like the 50th anniversary. Silly Dave. We laughed about that one. He was totally kidding by the way, you know Dave, always good for a laugh.

It has been a while..

Well, since I blogged last, much has happened: Christy got married and moved into our basement (it's so much fun to have them with us!!), we went on a 7-day Western Carribean Cruise, I got my dental hygiene license (June 2), I've already worked 2 full days as a real dental hygienist (it's hard for me to believe it's real), Dave bought a brand new 2009 Carolla Sport (see ya later brand new tacoma's and no car or insurance payments (But it's for the best), we finally got our sprinklers fixed and the lawn is trying to turn green again, we finished our basement (new carpet and all), Mar came to visit with Josh & Charlie for almost a month (I miss that sweet baby!), I hosted a family bridal shower for Christy, Charlie & Nevi were blessed on the same day (thank goodness they were 2 hours apart, that could have been a rough one), and we are going to our annual Kenny Chesney concert this weekend in San Francisco for our anniversary (I can't believe Kenny isn't coming to Utah this year, his shows are always sold out, at least we get to make a fun trip out of it and see Charlie). I need to tell more about the cruise because it was AMAZING, but I need to go pack for San Fran tomorrow. We are going to the Bountiful temple tomorrow right before we head to the airport because we are sealing my Grandma & Grandpa Widdison who have both passed away. It's a long story, but they are both sealed to other people, so even after 50 years of marriage, 5 children together, and lifetimes of faithful church service, they weren't able to be sealed while still living. I'm so excited because I've always wanted them to be together forever, they loved each other so much!!

I did it!!

Now that graduation is over, it feels really weird not to have to think about upcoming assignments and tests and studying. But it is definitely a good weird. It was such a busy day, but it was a good busy. It was so nice of Dave, my mom and dad, Brent, Christy, Kenny, Dave's parents and grandparents, Brittany, Bailey, and Owen all to come celebrate with me. I had a pretty sweet cheering section.Thanks guys!!
So this is how my day went down.
6am wake up to get ready, I had to be to the school by 7:30.
8am Convocation. This was an hour of boredom. Thank goodness I was sitting by Gina, we pretty much talked the whole time which made it bearable. The speaker was awful. She kept talking about how it is our responsibility to save the environment that her generation destroyed, blah, blah, blah. I know it's important to care about the environment. But she was pretty much chastising us at our graduation. Not cool.
9:30 pics with my friends
10:30 Brent's commencement. Brent earned his Masters of Accountancy. I'm so proud of him. That is such a huge achievement! I hope to be hooded some day when I earn my Masters. We only stayed long enough to watch him walk and get hooded because we had to eat before my commencement. The speaker at his was way good. He spoke of having ethics and how you have to decide now what you will and won't do. He said, "Everyone needs to have Go To Hell Money." He then went on to explain what Go To Hell Money is. You need to have enough money saved up that when your boss asks you to do something you think is unethical or you don't feel good about doing, you have enough money to tell him, "Go To Hell!" I really liked that because we talked a lot about ethics in hygiene and I'm certain that there will come a time in my dental career that someone will ask me to do something unethical, and I won't do it.
11:00 Brunch at the Union Building.
12:00 Line up for commencement. It was so fun to walk. It felt like such a huge accomplishment. It was also somewhat unreal to me. I've been working towards this moment since I was 14 and now, 10 years later, I did it. Crazy! Britt took lots of family pictures after so I'm excited to see those.
2:30 Lunch at TGI Fridays's. It was really good. My old friend Nate Hirschi was our waiter, I didn't even recognize him so I'm glad he said something.
5:00 We headed down to Brittany's to watch the kids/help with Christy & Kenny's engagement pics.
7:00 Headed to SLC for the Jazz game. Yep, we got row 5 tickets to the game that sent them to Round 2 with the Lakers. The Rockets didn't have a chance. Right from the beginning the Jazz played awesome and they kept it up the whole game. I love Kyle Korver!! He is so hot. I wish I would have had my camera because towards the end of the game when they were 20 points ahead, he kept encouraging the crowd to stand and be loud. He's so cute! By the 3rd quarter the busyness of the day caught up with me and I crashed. I was so tired that I felt sick. The sickness was also brought on by the halftime show which was Rubber Boy. It was the most disgusting thing ever. The boy would like dislocated his shoulders to do crazy tricks. He would contort his body in the most disgusting ways. At some points I had to turn away. I never felt good after seeing that. Dave went and got me a Diet Coke, so by the end of the game I had enough energy to stand and cheer. I love going to games, it was so fun! As we walked to the care I was seriously delirious due to fatigue. Good thing Dave was with me to take care of me or I wouldn't have made it home.
Brent and I at graduation May 2, 2008

Things To Blog About Soon

I've got so much catching up to do that I just need to make a list and post when I can.
1. Rock Band
2. Front Room
3. San Francisco/Charlie
4. Wedding plans
5. My Hot Hubby!!
6. Basement
7. Uncle Max--Eek!!
8. Babysitting Konner

Graduation Banquet

Last night was the dental hygiene graduation banquet. It was so fun to reminisce about all the fun, hard, and crazy times we've had over the last 2 years. If you would have asked me 2 weeks ago if going to dental hygiene was a good idea I would have said, "NO!! Run away as fast as you can!" But as of last night I'm actually starting to feel the deep sense of accomplishment and it feels good. I would recommend it to anyone. I even thought to myself last night, maybe I should get my master's degree. I'm sure I will at some point, but I need to take a breather for now. Tickets to the banquet were 26 dollars so only my parents and Dave's parents attended with us. They presented a few awards during the banquet and I was fortunate enough to receive 2 of them. I earned the Utah Dental Hygiene Association's Clinical Excellence Award and I was elected into the National Dental Hygiene Honor Society: Sigma Phi Alpha the Beta Mu Chapter. Pretty awesome!! I feel really good about the last 2 years and I'm thankful for the opportunity that I have had to meet and learn from so many wonderful people. Looking back, it really has been a good 2 years (not the best, I reserve that title for the years after graduation from high school thanks to Mindy, Christy, Autumn, and Evan). Graduation is tomorrow so I'm sure I'll have tons of new pics to post then when I'm in my full graduation attire.

My Hygiene Friends: Meredith, Celeste, me, Gina, Monica, and Holly.
Thanks for getting me through it all gals and
thanks to 4 inch heels for making me look ginormous!!

My parents


Dave's parents

Instructor Parry pinning me and the class

Professor McConaughy awarding the
national honor society award and pin to
Meredith, Monica, and me.

Melinda Andreason, President of the Utah Dental Hygiene Association, awarding me the Clinical Excellence Award. (That award is my favorite)