let it snow...

We got to Michigan safe and sound! We had a particularly awful flight coming in though (but not my worst, thankfully). We left right on time but due to the snow in Detroit, only two runways were open and we had to circle the airport several times before landing. The wind was whipping us all over the sky and for only the second time in my record of flying did I have motion sickness. I am so glad I had taken Dramamine!

For those of you that are in Dallas, I heard it was almost 90 there this week. The high on Monday here was 16 degrees! We got up really early Monday morning to go to Frankenmuth and kept praying it wouldn't snow. Thankfully it didn't until we were almost back to my parent's house on Tuesday. I will talk about Frankenmuth more in a later post, when I'm back on my own keyboard!

Forest and I are going to go outside and build a giant snowman. Forest hasn't seen this much snow since he moved from Utah over 10 years ago. He was so eager to shovel the snow for my parents yesterday, which was very helpful. Time to bundle up and freeze just for the sake of a snowman and funny pictures of me all bundled up! Wish us luck!

meh...

The last couple of days...or weeks...have been really up and down for me. The weather has been doing the same and when it changes so often like it has been, my body just hates it. Last night I had a power headache of the century complete with severe shoulder pain. I ended up going to bed very early and the only thing that even touched the pain was a heating pad. Thank goodness for those! I did end up getting a very restful night's sleep in the end.

I haven't posted in a few days because I've been ripping apart our site...again. I guess I am never satisfied. I think it's staying like this for a bit, but I said that a few months ago. I did figure out how to intigrate our gallery into wordpress, which was probably the biggest geek moment of mine in a while. I actually got up and started dancing. For those of you who care, that means my gallery (my pictures, that is) will look just like the rest of my blog. I'm still trying to tweak stuff into the right place and for some reason I can't get it right. If I try to get it perfect though, I will never post again and with this week's events, I didn't want to wait forever.

Although I think most of the people who read my blog are members of the LDS Church, for those of you who are not, our President and Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, died on Sunday. He has been Prophet for almost 13 years and therefore the majority of my life. When I heard the news, all I could think was how happy he probably was to be with his wife and our Heavenly Father again. Some might find it strange that I am feeling happy about his death, but there is no other way to describe it. He lived a very full life (he would turn 98 years old on June 23rd) and accomplished all that he set out to do, I'm sure. The biggest blessing the Church has given me is the fact that I know deep in my heart that we will be united with our loved ones again. I lost several family members very early in my life but have been comforted even as a small child with this knowledge. My favorite talk of his was the "6 B's" talk given only to the youth and young adults of the Church in 2000. I was 17 at the time and going through a horrible period in my life. I unfortunately suffer from chronic depression, something I've learned to overcome in recent years, but struggled with it quite badly as a teenager. Now, I grew up in the Church but gaining a testimony of it was something that was difficult for me. I knew it was true, but really didn't have reasons to tell myself or anyone else why I thought it was true. After hearing our Prophet speak directly to the youth, and therefore feeling it was directly to me, I knew that my testimony had just begun to grow, even if it was just the slightest bit. It has been a very long battle for me to fully understand how I feel about the Church. Starting with that particular talk, he helped me on the path that I am on now. My life in the last 7 years has changed dramatically but I can still take those words into heart and use them even now. He was such an inspiration to those he taught and he will be greatly missed.

I think that is all I have the energy for tonight, I will continue my thoughts after a good night's rest!

dramatic gracie

I took this picture the other day, Grace was so cute all bundled up in her coat and sweater when she was headed off to school. Grace belongs in a Baby Gap ad.

you are loved!

I am giving fair warning for what will happen next month. Get ready for it...I am coming to Michigan on February 10th. If that doesn't knock your socks off (if you live in Michigan, of course) then this will. Forest is coming with me! Yes, I really promise this time, we got our tickets last night. I've been promising for the last 4 trips that he would be coming with me. I may just be more excited than anyone else and the only reason I am ever going to want to leave is because I will undoubtedly miss Gracie.

On a side note, today Grace was crying at Jennie for no reason (as usual) but she had her cup of Cheerios in her hand. She handed them to Jennie, who told Grace "you can only have these if you are happy". Grace immediately started laughing, but it was so obviously a fake laugh. We were cracking up, it was so cute. She's doing a lot better, I know that she understands a huge deal of what we say to her. If she starts to cry and we tell her we're going to ignore her, she usually stops. Another fun story, I picked her up from school yesterday and if she hadn't been buckled into her chair she would have jumped clear out of it to get to me, it was so dang adorable. Things like that make me so happy that I'm doing what I'm doing, it's fantastic. Who else gets that kind of love from their employers?

Off the top of my head, I really can't think of much else that is going on. I'm really excited about our trip though, I haven't seen my sister in almost two years, I haven't seen Rob in over two years, so it will be great to see them. I realized that Rob and Forest haven't seen each other in over 5 years, long before any of us got married. A lot of things have changed, haven't they? We are planning to take a trip to Frankenmuth sometime during our visit and we're going to try to stay the night at the Bavarian Inn. It's a huge hotel will 5 indoor pools, including an adults-only pool and hot tub. It also has indoor miniature golf and a huge game room where I'm sure we will spend a lot of time. Their chicken dinners are so amazing, I think that is what I am looking forward to the most. I will just have to try not to overeat...

The weather here has been CRAZY! It had been pretty cold (even for me) for a few days then all of the sudden on Saturday it was beautiful. We hit a high somewhere in the 80's and it lasted for three days. It got a bit cooler yesterday and this morning it was cold again. I had to use an ice scraper for the first time in 4 years or so. I'm glad Dal left one for me or I would have been sitting there for a while heating my car up. I can't wait to get a garage... So, because of this weather, my fibromyalgia has been all over the place and I've been feeling stiff as a board but I take it all in stride. I move around a lot hanging out with Grace and that helps keep me from locking up. I'll suddenly feel dead tired in the middle of the day but that is another thing remedied pretty well by my job so I'm grateful for that. I can't believe I am willingly visiting Michigan in the dead of winter, at least this time I'll have a proper coat.

I also haven't updated on Courtney's progress in a while, in case you were all wondering. She is doing very well! She finally got to come home after her bone marrow transplant just after the new year and got to enter it officially cancer-free. We still continue to pray for her and hope that life can get back to normal as soon as it possibly can.

happy new year!

happy new year! jan 1 1:30 am

Well, it's official! Welcome 2008! It will be interesting to see what this year brings.

We spent most of today at Jennie and Dal's, hanging out with the girls, playing the Wii, making ornaments and eating good food. We went up to Justin to light things on fire and watch them explode. Poor Alexa almost got whacked by a renegade firework and it really shook her up! In the end she ended up having a lot of fun, but from the back of the van. Grace was giggling the entire time, she really enjoyed the lights and sounds.

Grace got the CUTEST haircut on Saturday, she looks so darling. She got a huge bean bag chair for Christmas and she was sitting in it today looking like such a big girl, I took Jennie's camera and snapped a few pictures. You also get to see one of the shirts I got her for Christmas!

don't shoot me santa

One of my favorite bands, The Killers, has an awesome new song and video out for the holidays called Don't Shoot Me Santa. I had to share, because it is far too funny not to. As a bonus, if you use Itunes you can download it there and the proceeds will benefit the RED Campaign. Enjoy!

holiday explosions

We had a very interesting Christmas. Explosive, literally.

On Monday night we had a nice evening with the Wrights. We played a great game of Apples to Apples (the best game on earth) and enjoyed some very good snacks. We're so grateful to have friends that we can share the holidays with, it's made the fact that none of our family was in DFW this year a little more tolerable. We went into Christmas thinking we would have a great day.

We woke up a little later than usual and opened our presents. Forest got me a beautiful jewelry box, something I've been asking for for years. I got Forest a computer game, but unfortunately the power supply on his brand-new computer shorted out. He will have to get a better one, but didn't want to have to worry about that. So, I'm bummed that he can't play it. I decided to make Christmas meatballs, it's kind of become a tradition for us. I placed them into two glass square pans, one Pyrex brand and the other Anchor. I pulled them out of the oven and placed them on the stove. I went to stir the sauce I had in my crock-pot and I heard a huge pop. The Pyrex dish cracked into huge jagged sharp pieces! I cleaned up the mess (and of course cut myself a little bit in the process) and went on to do other things. About an hour later, I was doing dishes and Forest was drying and putting things away when I heard another huge pop and many little items hitting my back and legs. The second dish exploded. There were pieces of glass everywhere in a 5 foot radius. It was shocking, that is all I can say! What are the odds of two dishes doing that within a few hours? Our pumpkin pie was sitting right next to it and was full of huge shards of glass. Thankfully our meal wasn't ruined. I was nervous the rest of the day that my crock-pot was next!

So, after the crazy Christmas we had, mingled with the fact that we are both sick, I just made soup and ate leftover dip for dinner. Forest put the dip on a plate for a minute and about 30 seconds later we heard a huge crack. The plate cracked in half in the microwave. I wish I were making this up. Forest then said "I am going to heat this soup up on the stove and if THAT explodes, I'm not sleeping here tonight!" So far, tonight, no explosions...