21

Recently I celebrated my 21st birthday.

I want to thank my family for the awesome party that they had for me and for all my friends who wished me happy birthday! Thank you all!! :)

My super cute and extra super delicious cake.

Getting ready to blow out the candles...

One of my nieces eating cake.

Don't you love the poses kids come up with when you take out a camera?

Another niece enjoying her birthday cake (it was her birthday as well! Happy birthday!)

Some of the gang :)  Oh, and Mom thank you for the sherbet ice cream!

Me with my AWESOME parents!!

I love you both so much!! :)

My nephew asked me to take this picture, which is funny because this kid  loves everything army and downs meat and Tabasco sauce like its nobody's business. A true man. 

Again, thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! I appreciate the visits, calls, texts, and facebook posts. I love you all!!

Mesa Verde National Park Road Trip

Well, welcome home Elder and Sister Jenkins!!

My parents finished up their mission in the Uttica, New York Mission (they served in Albany) recently. They vacationed some as they traveled home from two years of dedicated service. I am so grateful to them for their example :)

My brother Mark and I drove down to meet them in Cortez, Colorado. We had an excellent time reuniting with my parents and enjoying Cortez as well as Mesa Verde National Park.

Sadly, most of the pictures taken were on my mother's camera, so I will have to get those later. But here are some of mine!

Eating at Tequila's Mexican Restaurant in Cortez, Colorado 

Look at our massive pile of food! We had a giant pig pot filled with piles of meat.

Our meat-filled pig.

Our skillet of chicken and shrimp goodness.

And if you ever go to this restaurant, get the fried ice cream! YUMMY!

The sunrise when my father and I went running at 6 AM :)

At "Hole in the Wall" on the drive home. My brother feeding an ostrich over the fence.

A video of him feeding the ostrich. It was attacking the tree!

I don't know if you can see it, but the "BIGFOOT" sign is pointing to a bunny hopping around in the grass.

Golfer guy made out of golf clubs.

Epic "Home N''the Rock" sign.

That is one big bull!

Look above the "K"... Hole in the Rock is known for the houses built into the rock... above the "K" is a chimney.

The trip was a lot of fun! More pictures will be coming soon!!

25th Anniversary of the Springville World Folkfest

 Last night I went to the 25th Anniversary of the Springville World Folkfest. The showcase of talent was superb and the night was just overall awesome. I went with my parents (who, btw, recently returned from a mission in Albany, New York!) and my brother Mark.

Me and one of the Australian dancers. I obviously couldn't resist getting a picture with a man dressed like this ;)

One of the awesome things about the showcase was that the dancers were from literally all around the world. I am glad that they came from their country to perform in little 'ol Springville. They had dancers from:

Belgium

Alkuone

Alkuone did some fantastic flag dancing. Their flag tricks were excellent and I loved that the swish of their flags created part of their music.

De Krekels

De Krekals had a very traditional dancing style and they expertly demonstrated that laundry can be fun! They were great.

USA

Morning Star

Morning Star

I have actually seen Morning Star perform before. Both this time and last time I was very impressed. They showcased great talent with their traditional Indian dances. A favorite of mine is their hoops dance shown in the above pictures. They take about.... at least 20 hoops each and put them in crazy formations all around their bodies while they are still dancing. Impressive.

Rocky Mountain Express

Cloggers!! I always get excited to see clogging. The Rocky Mountain Express cloggers were so intense. They moved their feet at amazing speeds and shocked me with their routines. I especially loved how they involved the audience in their routine.

Philippines

University of San Jose-Recoletos, Dramatic and Cultural Ensemble

I loved the traditional dancing and singing from the University of San Jose-Recoletos Dramatic and Cultural Ensemble. They did many traditional dances and tried to promote peace, love and unity. Good for them!

Romania

Doina

Doina's handmade costumes definitively added to their dance. The tassels on their vests and peacock feathers on their hats were great, along with their dancing!

Isreal

Shalom Isreal

People from all around the world are absolutely beautiful, but can I just say emphasize Isreali women are among them? Not only were the people beautiful, but the mixture of ballet and traditional were excellent.

Indonesia

My mother and I with some of the dancers from Keneca Pradipa Fakultas Psikologi, Unversitas Indonesia

I loved the bamboo stick dancing that this group did. Many groups incorporated the bamboo stick dance, but this group did extensively. Their talent, body art and costumes were all wonderful.

Australia

You already got to see the picture of me and the Australian man at the beginning of my blog, well here is part of their actual performance. It was so dark and the video isn't the greatest quality, but more so I wanted you to hear their didjeridu playing. This group was expert at it and it was beautiful.

Blugaria

Last, but not least, the Nessebar group performed. Sadly by this point I had given up taking pictures because it was too dark outside to see the pictures well. The group did a great job!! They have won all types of international awards (as have many of these other groups). My favorite parts of their performance was 1. their footwork, which was amazing! and 2. the banter between the men and the women. Lots of traditional dancing has banter of a sorts between men and women... I thought this group brought that interaction to a whole new level.

Again, this showcase was amazing and if you read this in time, you should go tonight.. its their last show. http://www.worldfolkfest.com/ . Many of these groups are also staying and performing at the Bountiful/Davis Summerfest International Art and Folk Festival next week http://www.farmington.utah.gov/displayarticle227.html .

Thank you to all the groups who performed! Enjoy Utah! :)

Bubba Jenkins

The other day I met the boyfriend of one of my friends.

He asked me what my name was, and I said "Deba." He was a little shocked and asked where I got the name.

I always tell people that Deba is short for Deborah. My mother had a friend named Deba and loved the name.

Here was about his reaction to the name Deba....

"I have been wondering for years what the female version of "Bubba" would be... now I know! Its Deba."

So there you have it folks, Deba is the female equivalent of Bubba. I think I will start introducing myself that way.

The story gets better. This guy also told me that all growing up his family would tell stories about Bubba Jenkins, a hick farmer who wasn't very smart. I am glad my "close cousin" could set such an example for me :) 

Please do not confuse this imaginary Bubba Jenkins to the famous wrestler from ASU or the nice farmer pictured above. Although, they should be proud to be considered a Bubba. I know I am.

College student learns trick to keeping a clean house!

Have you ever seen the ad on the internet, "Utah mom learns trick to losing weight"?

Well, I have found my own trick! This one to keeping a clean house . . .

Want to know the secret?

It is simple! Find a book on CD that is ridiculously intense and make a promise to yourself that you won't listen to the book unless you are doing something productive . . . in my case cleaning the house or driving.

Seeing as gas costs money and I haven't had too many errands to run, I have cleaned a lot.

Here are a couple pictures to demonstrate the power of this trick. I don't know if the pictures can adequately show, but my kitchen is spotless.

Thank you to "Vengeance," the book that I am currently reading on CD. Great book.

Keep an eye out for my next set of book reviews and enjoy this trick FREE of charge :)

Oh, and feel blessed that we have great writers out there who use their talents to entertain our lives :)

Food for Thought

Okay, so this post isn't quite correctly labelled because the information contained is not a compilation of eloquent or bold statements that will have you pondering on the meaning of life, but instead... well, you will see.

Frequently I bring in large amounts of food to work because many days I eat all three meals in the office. Last night at work I was hungry and really didn't want to throw together my entire meal, so I just ate the chicken:

Literally, a THE chicken... as in a whole chicken. Well, actually I had used it for three/four meals already so there wasn't a ton of meat left, but my coworkers still got a kick out of my "whole chicken in a bowl" meal.

Easter and Passover

I spent this past Easter with Dan's family.

Dan is 1/8th Jewish I think... Nevertheless, his family history and a strong Jewish influence.

I believe it was his grandfather who converted to the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Even though he switched relgions, he still practiced the traditions of Judaism, because, as you know, it is not only a religion but also a culture.

We started our Easter festivities with searching for our "Easter buckets." Dan's mother filled buckets with candy and toys and then hid them in the house. We were only allowed to move our own bucket when we found it. If we found someone else's bucket, then we had keep our mouth shut regarding its whereabouts.

My bucket was hiding in the bathroom under a bunch of towels and sheets.

I thouroughly enjoyed the contents :)

Dan's was taped under a desk in the den.

Everyone was happy to find their buckets.

Following the Easter festivities we moved forward with the Passover festivities.

We had a lot of family attend, and it was a ton of fun to help setup.

All the men had an opportunity to wear their yamakas.

 After we finished reading through our Passover script, we all enjoyed the traditional food.

Especially Dan... he ate a lot of it :)

This was my first passover and I really enjoyed it.

What was an LDS Passover like? Well, I think pretty much the same as a Jewish passover. The main difference in our tradition of passover was when we talked about Elijah. We still had a place for Elijah at the table, but members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that Elijah already fulfilled his prophecy of coming again, during the passover week of 1836, by appearing in the Kirtland Temple. You can read the account in D&C 110: 13-16.

What a wonderful day! I loved it! :)