Here's what the Iverson's were thankful for this year:
The most beautiful Wedding Ever!
Heathcare-- huge! A tremendous benefit the army provides for us.
Answers to so many prayers.
Never ending love we feel each day from our Savior, and Heavenly Father.
Kind friends here in El Paso.
Safety-- living here on the border of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Gorgeous sunsets-- every one takes our breath away.
Internet-Skype was a huge blessing while Fuzz was in Iraq though we're so thankful to speak in person now;)
Various service opportunites, run's etc. that have blessed our lives to be a part of.
IVERSON-- My new last name;)
New beginnings ;)
Golf-- I'd never learned how to play until this year. Fuzz would die without it.
The list goes on from there-- it'd be impossible for us to name all of the things that we are so grateful for. Our families especially and the relationship that we have with them. It's a blessing to live somewhat close to them, at least within driving distance. We have so much to be grateful for!
We got to go home, back to southern Utah for Thanksgiving. We left Wednesday afternoon and had to drive through snow, in the dark, for about 3 hours. We were going to take my car, but last minute we'd changed our minds and decided to take the truck-- which was the hugest blessing! There were cars sliding off the road, and we were even sliding, until Morgan put the truck in 4wd-- I don't know where we would've ended up without it. We saw snow the rest of the drive home, until about 30 min out of St. George. We pulled up to Fuzz's mom's house at about 3:30 am and she was surprisingly there out in the middle of the cold to greet us-- she had conveniently woken up on her own and went outside to get some wood for the fire, and surprise! There we were, just hopping out of Fuzz's truck, unloading all of our stuff to take inside with us. We had a good lil chat with DeAnn and then got to sleep. We slept for a few hours and then it was morning time;) We had our Thanksgiving feast at Grandma Sorenson's house-- it was amazing! And then we headed over to Hurricane to meet up with my Johnson Grandparents, and the rest of my family for dessert. That's where Tara surprised us with the big news. . . she's pregnant! She and Tiffany are both pregnant right now and due within about a month of each other, Tara-July, Tiffany-June! So FUN! We enjoyed the next couple days with our families, and then headed to Vegas Saturday night for the Transiberian Concert with my family.
Us with Shaye babe-- my lil brother, right before the show.
Mom's picture of us. . . just before it started ;)
It was amazing! Really, one of the neatest concerts I've ever been too-- even Fuzz Loved it! It was an awesome first Thanksgiving together with our families.
The next weekend we drove with our friends the Webbs to Phoenix to visit JJ and his beautiful family. Fuzz and his buddy that went with us had met JJ in Iraq.
This is a picture of another Airforce buddy, Fuzz and JJ.
JJ was in the airforce, and met up with them partway through there deployment. There weren't a lot of Mormon's there, but the three of them would meet up every Sunday and have a special worship time together, even if they just sang hymns the whole time. I was always hearing stories about JJ-- Funny kid. He was such a good friend to Fuzz and Webb, they all were so lucky to have each other there. JJ lives in IL so we've never been able to see him since they've all been back from their deployment, but conveniently for us, JJ's wife has family in Arizona that they were staying with for Thanksgiving for a couple weeks-- so we decided that we'd all go up and spend their last weekend there all together. We all went together with our spouses to the Mesa Temple- I couldn't get over how gorgeous it was. No picture that I'd ever seen had given it justice-- The inside was just as beautiful, or even more, than the outside. It was neat to be there all together- such a special experience for us all.
JJ, Tyler, and Fuzz
Me and Fuzz
That night we went to this incredible light parade that JJ's wife's family goes to each year-- they have a tradition where they set up a stand with soup and all kinds of treats for their family as they enjoy the light parade. Every float/person in the parade is covered in lights, it was amazing!
There were about 80 entries-- so much time and effort was put forth into this parade-- it was neat to be able to actually be there and see first hand their creativity.
The next week's adventure came as sort of a surprise. My friend Cassie lives here in El Paso with her husband-- Cassie and I use to be in the same ward back in Utah. And now, she was due to have her very first baby. Her family wasn't able to be there the week the baby was born-- as she was born about a week later than they'd anticipated, so we got to be there at the hospital with her to make sure that she'd be okay that night. She even let me stay in her room while she delivered her baby! I thought it would make me even more nervous about ever having one of my own-- but if anything it made me just so much more excited to someday be a mother. It was the neatest thing ever-- the baby was inside her one second, and then crying the next second on her lap with toes, fingers, ears and eyes-- It was a miracle-- I can't think of a better way to describe the experience. Little Jessica was gorgeous. I couldn't stop staring at her watching her take in her first moments of life. We've gone back several times to visit and she continues to grow even more beautiful every time we see her. Cassie is one of the most courageous people I know. I was so impressed with how she handled everything at the hospital, and with suddenly being a new mom-- truly one of my greatest hero's.
We had a Christmas get-together with some of our closest buddies the other night. Right before people started coming over we received our wedding DVD's from our friend Alan in New York. Definately one of the most brilliant people I know. He'd put together the most incredible wedding video I'd ever seen as a gift to us. It had me in tears from the first 5 seconds clear to the end. He included every detail of the day and included excerpts from what our parents had thought of that day-- they had secretly all gotten together behind our backs and recorded their thoughts of the temple ceremony as we were there, and what they thought about us, and that special day. It was one of the neatest gifts I've ever seen-- what a labor of love! It will be something we'll forever cherish.
We'd popped in the DVD while our friends were there-- they hadn't been able to come to our wedding so we thought it would be neat for them to see what it was like. Everyone loved it.
We ate tons of junk food and then Fuzz performed-- for the first time ever-- Silent Night. He had been practicing with me all the week before, and then that night played it for our friends.
This is his last run through before his show-- you can tell how serious he was taking it-- haha.
It was so funny to see him so nervous-- but he didn't let his nerves get in the way and affect his performance. It was so much fun, Webb pulled out our other guitar and asked Fuzz to teach him how to play it too.
Then we all played it together-- they did Amazing!
So this weekend started off with an early morning 8k race at Fort Bliss. We ran with our buddy Rios ;) we all have different paces so all finished at different times, but had a great time:)
That night we went to our friend Kevin's 25th birthday party-- it was an 80's party. Even though Fuzz and I were both born in the 80's we had no idea what we were going to wear-- this is what we came up with ;)
Well today is our 6 month anniversary! Woohoo! And to celebrate, we get to pack and get ready to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to drive home for Christmas! We really can't wait to spend the holiday with our families. This time we'll be able to stay home for 10 whole days!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
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