Another Heart Happy Photo

Becca, Stacia, Shaina, my Mom and I all went to see Mamma Mia last night (so horrifically enjoyable! It's a great show if 1) you know ABBA music and LOVE it and 2) you are willing to completely lose yourself in the movie - if you miss one of those elements this movie is AWFUL!). The best part of the night though? Becca and I pull the parking lot to find this little guy parked right there - just like this in a normal spot like he owned it! It was too funny! I don't know who, what, where, why or how, but it did make us happy to no end :D

I love this picture!

Hava What?

HAVASUPAI!

Here are the Havasu Falls! They are AmAZiNg! It was so neat to hike to them and see the blue blue waters, tall falls, the cascading mini falls, and the green green green that surrounded these falls!

So there weren't very many places to change out there in nature. So I made my own place. Changing in my hammock! I told the gals they couldn't look if I fell out half naked! (fortunately that never happened)

This is how it pretty much was EVERY morning. I'm up, awake and ready to get going! . . . but Becca barely getting up. Becca is the only one I know who can get a good night's sleep while camping. The rest of us were kept awake by falling hammocks, crazy rock-throwing squirrels, ferocious winds, etc . . . But not Becca, nope she sleeps through it all!

Then Somer and I traversed the treacherous caves and dangerous mountain slope to reach Mooney Falls! (So named because a man named Mooney, jumped off the falls to his death. Or at least that is the story Mike told us, and he never lies . . . right?)

We finally reached Mooney Falls (after fearing for our lives several times on the way down) . While we were there we found the beautiful Aubrey!
We did come across some other great and amazing sites:

Finally our adventure was coming to an end. But we knew one of the hardest parts was coming up: the hike out! So we gathered together our Sisterhood of the Traveling Packs and ventured out. We found some muscle women:

These women are my heroes! We had a great time hiking out. We sang our complaints (great tunes like "My butt hurts!" or "My blisters are bursting!" They're catchy and I think they could be on the Top 10 on the US Charts), we laughed, we joked. It was awesome! Here we have Becca, Ashleigh, Somerset, and Noa (not pictured: Aubrey and Angel - Noa's daughter)

And then we came to the end. If you look carefully you can see the poop choppers that are flying in fresh porta-potties (yes we missed clean ones by a mere few hours):

A rose by any other name . . .

Can I just say I LOVE my name! It's taken me many years to fully appreciate my name, but it is a fantastic one: Shara Marie Svedi. I'm not sure you could get a better name and here are a few reasons why:

Shara:
1. Unique, but not so unique that I'm a white girl with a black name (no offense intended)
2. It means "princess" - that's right
3. *Best one* It's the front half of a sentence: Shara = Share a . . . (if I play my cards right I can marry someone who's last name is a noun and become a sentence. Shara Mann, Shara Carr, Shara Pie - my preferred choice - also works well with the last name as you can tell by my blog title)
4. Easily turns into SheRa (call back to 80's cartoon - SheRa: Princess of Power - she's my hero)
5. "So Shara Sundae?" A friend asked this question before. :D Love it!

Marie:
Simple. Pretty. Great tie together with Shara and Svedi. Even though it's a little on the common side with a unique first and last name you need the more common middle to bring it all together.

Svedi:
I'm not going to lie, it's going to be very hard to give up Svedi one day.
1. Svedi Pie! (Actually the whole "sweetie card" I LOVED it on my mission that the natives couldn't pronounce my last name. I was Xi Jiemei or Sister Sweetie my whole mission. Love, love, love it!)
2. Speedy Svedis (when I was in AZ we went to some ward activity were our family was a team and our team name was the Speedy Svedis. Years later at BYU I met this kid who remembered that name from our ward. It was hilarious!)
3. It's NOT Swedish. I have nothing against the Sweds - they're great, but Svedi is Croatian. It means "Saint" (yet another reason why it's so fabulous).
4. Svedi is a fairly rare name even in Croatia - and actually that name was given to our family. My great, great grandfather was left at an orphanage and the nuns gave him the name of "Svedi." Kind of a cool story.
5. Great conversation starter - so many people ask me about my name.

S.M.S. - just like SMS texts (short message service, just in case you were wondering). It's kind of fun to see my initials everywhere. The only preferable initials would be S.A.S.

Thanks Mom and Dad! You guys really out did yourselves when you picked my name! :D