A Very Special Day!!

Today has been such a special day! Brad and I have had the opportunity over the last few months to help teach Keys and Brandy about the gospel of Jesus Christ with the Missionaries. 

Today December 14, 2013 they got Married and Baptized! 

 Before the Wedding the family members were taking pictures outside. I was late in going out there but I got this sweet one of Brandy and her daughter Alyssa. All together Brandy and Keys have 6 children. 5 Boys and 1 sweet little girl!

So first off the Relief Society Room where they got married was decorated beautifully! 

And the ceremony began. Bishop McArthur performed the wedding and did a wonderful job. He quoted several things from The Family: A Proclamation to the World. For those who haven't read it, it is a proclamation that was written by the first presidency of the church. It can be found here. 

Mr. and Mrs. Mays!!!

Brandy was showing off her beautiful ring! She is so funny! 

They are made for each other!

Brandy and Keys had so many family members and friends to celebrate their special day! Here is a picture with the Best Man and the Maid of Honor. 

After the wedding, Brandy and Keys got dressed in their baptismal clothes to be baptized. They have been waiting for this day for a long time! 

The baptism was great and such a sweet spirit was felt. It left me in tears because I was just so excited and happy for them! I am so excited that they can enjoy the happiness that they have been looking for and they have followed our Heavenly Father's plan and was baptized just as Christ was. 

Brandy and Keys, we are so excited for you and know that your Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ are so proud of you and are excited about the covenants you have made with them today. We love you and are so glad we have been able to meet you and teach you in the short time that we have lived here in Bakersfield!

We had to get a picture with these two guys! Elder Garcia and Elder Wells! We had been called as Ward Missionaries while we have been living here in Bakersfield. We have been so blessed to help teach with these missionaries. They will forever be in our hearts! 

(Ok that ^ picture makes me look huge!) 

Here is a better one of me! 

I will be 30 weeks tomorrow! I can't believe it!! Baby Aubrey is such an active little girl! I can't wait to meet her! 

Just a few more days here in Bakersfield! Tonight we have a ward Christmas Party and then we have lots of packing to do and we are off to travel home on December 19th! Time is ticking away! We are so excited for Christmas and looking forward to spending time with Family! 

Weekend Visitors and 1 week left!

 This last weekend we had visitors!!! A roommate from my first semester at BYU-Idaho and her husband came to Bakersfield. Marquee and Brett came down from Chico, CA (where Brett is doing an internship) to tour the church farms here in Bakersfield. 

After their tour on Friday we were able to meet up and go to our favorite restaurant BJ's! Their food is so good and we had such a great time visiting and catching up! 

Saturday afternoon we got together again and they stayed the night with us! Saturday night some ladies in my ward got together and the girls went out for a girls night. We went to dinner at Chuy's and then to the Bakersfield Master Chorale. Kathy and Sam Bulkeley from my ward performed and it really got us into the Christmas Season. 

Before the Concert

The church that they performed at was decorated beautifully! 

The performers

We had a wonderful time! While we were out the Boys went to Thor! They also had a great time! 

It was so great having Marquee and Brett stay with us! They are friends that even though we don't see each other very often, we are able to pick up our relationship right where it left off. We are both excited to get back to Rexburg this Winter!

Speaking of going back to Rexburg, Brad and I only have one week left here in Bakersfield. Next Thursday I take off on a plane to fly home for the Holidays and Don, my father in-law, is going to be flying down here to drive back with Brad. My in-laws were so kind to buy me a flight home since I being 30 weeks pregnant probably would handle the 21 hour drive very well! They will have a few stops on the way to see family and to pick up Brian at school in Rexburg. 

So when I moved here to Bakersfield I was asked to put up pictures of what our apartment looked like. I never took the time to take the pictures and to post them on my blog. So before we started packing I thought I should do so! So here they are!!

Right inside our front door!

Family Room

Other wall of the Family Room

Our view to outside. We have a small porch and the doors to the left has our washer and dryer in it. It was hard to get used to going outside to do laundry but I loved it being out there. Very quiet and didn't heat up our apartment in the summer! 

Kitchen

Our eating area

Master Bedroom. We left our bed frame and other bedroom furniture in storage in Rexburg. That door is our walk in closet! It is huge but too messy for a picture! 

Master Bathroom

Guest Bath (it is bigger than our master bath)

We also have a guest bedroom but nothing but storage is in there. When we had visitors they stayed there but other than that it was empty the whole time we lived here. 

We have loved this apartment! It is twice the square footage as our apartment in Rexburg and it has 9 foot ceilings. I have a feeling we are going to feel very crammed when we move back to Rexburg, especially with all of the baby stuff adding up! Thats ok though we will only be there for one more semester! 

So Brad is winding down with work. He only has 3 days left! He has loved his internship with PCL. We hope a future job is in store with them but we are just grateful for the experience we have had. I honestly can't believe how quickly these last 5 months has gone! We have truly been blessed with everything and are really going to be sad to leave! 

Now we just need the motivation to start packing and cleaning! Wish us luck! 

Love,

The Duffy's

November 2013

It is already December and there is so much that I haven't blogged about that we did in November so here it is! 

On November 9th we went to the CALM Zoo here in Bakersfield. It is a Zoo that has all the animals that one would see in the wild in California! 

We saw a Black Bears! 

 

 A Red Fox

Bobcats

Mountain Lions 

Mule deers 

Beavers

And so many other animals... raccoons, owls, eagles, coyotes, all sorts of snakes and lizards, badgers, possums, and a porcupine to name a few more! 

We had such a fun time being out and about and enjoying some fun animals! We can't wait to enjoy things like this with our future kids! 

On November 14th some ladies in my ward here threw me a baby shower! When Brad dropped me off we were able to get a picture together with the adorable owl decorations! 

 Becky Foulk was so kind to open her home to let us celebrate! 

Shortly after Brad left the Ladies Arrived! 

(L to R Back Row: Alexis Swanson, Alesia Lawson, Jeanette McArthur, Sharon Scott, Tina Portwood, Jennifer Weight, Adrienne Weighall, Me, Michelle Sneath, Stacie Dartnell. Front Row: Jessie Larsen, Becky Foulk, and Oliva Weighall.) Not Pictured Kathy Bulkeley. Also who brought gifts were Linda Greer and Teri and Jackie Andersen! 

We had so much fun playing games and the ladies made the gifts for Aubrey so personal! With homemade dolls, headbands, diaper clutch, crocheted hats and booties, and darling clothes and books! I loved them all! They have all been so welcoming since we have moved down here and have been so supportive of Brad and I. 

This is Becky the host of the shower! We have become great friends in the last few months that we have lived here in Bakersfield. 

Becky is a single mom and has two adorable kids! She is an amazing woman who has had us over for Sunday dinner every week, for several Family Home Evenings, and we have been out on several afternoon outings. I have been blessed to have such a great friend as her!

Alesia was also a huge help with the shower. She was in charge of all of the creative games! Alesia is such a wonderful woman! I have loved getting to know her and have built a great friendship with her as well! She is a recent convert to the LDS church and is just so awesome! 

I am really going to miss all of these wonderful ladies when we move! Thank goodness for Facebook and technology so we can keep in touch! 

On November 16th Brad and I were able to witness the Baptism of Sandra Dotson. Sandra is in her 60's and we have had the great opportunity of helping her to learn about the gospel with being ward missionaries. She has come to know our Savior, Jesus Christ, and has made drastic changes in her life in order to be Baptized. We were so excited for her. It was such a busy day for her that we didn't have time to take a picture but she was the happiest I had ever seen her that day! 

On November 20th was my 23rd Birthday! 

It started out with me going to the doctors office to do my 2 hour glucose test! It wasn't the worst but wasn't my favorite either! I had to get my blood drawn 3 times within the 2 hours. (which ended up getting poked 5 times because they missed twice..)  

But after the 2 hour waiting period I had a lot of fun! 

I met up with several ladies from church and we enjoyed the beautiful 70 degree weather at Camille's Sidewalk Cafe! Never in my life could I say I sat in the sun for my birthday Lunch! California does have beautiful Fall weather! 

We all had fabulous food! I enjoyed a Chicken sandwich with some tomato basil soup! It was delicious!

We had a blast just visiting and enjoying the weather! 

During the day I got wonderful phone calls from my nieces, text messages from friends and family and a bunch of Facebook birthday wishes through out the day! I felt so loved! 

Later that night Brad and I went to our Favorite Restaurant BJ's. (Thank you mom for the Gift Card!!) 

These are our favorite! Avocado Egg rolls! They are SO delicious!!    

For dinner I had a deep dish personal pizza and Brad had shrimp tacos. 

And you can't forget the birthday pizookie! :)  

Brad also got me these beautiful roses, made me my favorite fun fetti birthday cake, and bought me my favorite Moose Track Ice Cream!! 

I think I can say I was definitely SPOILED!!! Thank you everyone for making my day so special!! 

A few days ago RandiSue Luchau, a lady from church brought over all of these adorable baby clothes for Aubrey! It was so sweet of her to bring them over! She has 4 girls of her own so she definitely has the collection. We have been so blessed to receive all of these! Thank you RandiSue! 

Baby Aubrey at 26.5 Weeks! She is a growing girl!! 

 Brad and I have tried some new places this month! We went to Dewar's which is like a ice cream parlor and candy store. We shared a delicious Milk Shake and tried some old fashioned Taffies. It has been around Bakersfield since 1909 and is very yummy! 

They had this solid Chocolate Santa for $250.00!!

Another place we tried out this month was Moo Creamery! We had delicious burgers, sweet potato fries, and ice cream sundaes. Brad said it was our pre-Thanksgiving appetizer. It definitely stretched our stomachs out! lol

We also had a wonderful Thanksgiving. On the Sunday before we went and had a thanksgiving spread at Becky's house! It was delicious! We also played fun games after dinner! We were laughing so hard I even had to run to use the restroom. My pregnant belly couldn't handle it any longer lol!

Thursday we spent the afternoon at Stacie Dartnell's home. They served tri-tip! It was a Thanksgiving first but also so delicious! It was so kind of the Dartnell's to have us over! We enjoyed the evening with calling our families and relaxing. 

On Black Friday Brad and I went and saw Frozen with movie tickets I got from my in-laws for my Birthday! It was super cute! We had to wait in line for like 45 minutes though to get good seats for the show. Brad was thrilled... not! 

As you can see we had a wonderful month of November. During this month we have also gave our 30 day notice to move out! I can't believe how fast the time has gone by! Christmas is just right around the corner! I can't believe it! 

In the last blog post I have posted what I was thankful for. Brad and I have so much to be thankful for and we know it is all made possible through our Heavenly Father for living righteously. We show our gratitude enough! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are prepping for the greatest time of the year! We love you all!

Love, 

The Duffy's

P.S. A shout out to Jeremy and McKensie Assmus for reaching their 6 year Anniversary on December 1st! 

 They were married in the Salt Lake Temple

Siblings- At the Reception

And their Cute Family Photo! Quinn is so blessed to have such great parents! Love you guys! Can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks!