Just another Chan Story. . .

Welcome 2012

2012-01-29T15:30:00.000-08:00

We're so excited for what's in store for the Iversons this year of 2012! We'd planned on starting this year out with a half marathon in Dallas, where we were going to meet up with some of our friends, however life happens-- and sometimes doesn't work out just how we might have planned. We decided instead just to run the race here in Lubbock. We chose a different place than where we'd been training, just for fun, and to maybe change up the scenery a little bit. We decided to run around Buffalo Spring's Lake (which is just about 5 min out of Lubbock).

We made our way out there early Saturday morning, and then chalked up our route and mileage-- twice around the lake was just less than 14 miles, and since a half is 13.1 we figured it would work out perfectly. We started our run just as the sun was still coming up-- it was gorgeous-- the entire run was gorgeous, the scenery, the houses around the lake all so creative and unique. We'd trained in Lubbock, where there aren't any hills at all-- and were surprised to find several pretty good sized hills in this run around the lake-- our knee's hadn't received sufficient training for them, so they were kinda sore, but we were able to run out most of the soreness, and just enjoy our run. We were surprisingly not too sore after the run, we'd stretched really well-- that always helps;)

There were random buffalo statues in front of many of the lake houses-- this one was so chubby and cute we had to get a picture with it!

We'd trained for a half last year and then Fuzz and his friends in the army that were going to run with us had a surprise training that they had to leave for -- they were gone for a few weeks, and then we had a funeral in UT, Brittans farewell... etc. needless to say, the race got lost somewhere in there-- We're happy to have finished what we'd trained for this year! It was a great experience for us to do together, and a great way for us to begin our 2012.

Our White Christmas

2012-01-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

It's been quite some time since my last post-- but we've been busy doing lots of good things;)
We weren't able to go home for Thanksgiving so we just celebrated it with a few of our friends, it ended up being about 4 couples. We all made sure that our favorite dishes were there. . . needless to say, we had way too much food! We all made several desserts which almost ='d about a pie per person ;) We experienced our first black Friday ever that night--- it was amazing! We kinda went a lil crazy but found some awesome deals-- so worth staying up all night for;)

I experienced my first holiday season in retail--wow that's when all the scaries come out! I loved all the holiday decorations, shipments of new clothes for my department on almost a daily basis, increase in sales-- I dare say I quite liked it;) However, I don't miss working the long holiday schedules, that and seeing the scrooges come out in people- must just be the stress that inevitably comes with that time of year.

We were invited to our first ever Hanukkah party this year.

We have a friend in our ward whom Fuzz has actually been shadowing for physical therapy, who's mother was raised Jewish, but then they were converted to Christianity and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. However, they continued to celebrate the tradition of Hanukkah ever since. I've never known much about this holiday, but it was one of the neatest parties ever! We were invited to bring a Jewish dish, so we googled "Jewish recipe's" and found this yummy looking apple crumb cake--- I took advantage of this great opportunity as a awesome excuse for me to splurge on a funnel pan ;)

We had their potato pancakes, essentially glorified hashbrowns--which tasted amazing! And then homemade applesauce, some challah bread---oh I'm so in love!, some soda, chocolate money, and of course our apple crumb cake. We played games, no not dradle;) read the story of Hanukkah and even got a present because that's part of their tradition. Fuzz got a way rad pocket knife which was awesome because his just got stolen when his truck got broken into, and I, ironically for my Hanukkah gift got a beautiful nativity set;) so neat! Super cool experience, we've already rsvp'd for next years party.

We made our very first gingerbread house this year! Super fun;)

We had the opportunity to help out with the Stake's Nativity event. I had no idea what exactly to expect, but it was incredible! It's an exhibit of about 400 Nativity sets that people within the stake donate for this special week. There's a children's room, and an international room and then the main cultural hall with all of the others! It took about a week to decorate for it-- and all year to plan. It's an interfaith event where we invite other choirs etc. to perform at it, and invite everyone we know to come and view it. I was a part of the decorating committee and was just floored at how incredible it all turned out! I was asked to perform with my friend Shelly from my ward, we both play harp;) we were able to perform for about 45 min one night just as background music, and then on Sunday just one song for the sing along, Silent Night. Fuzz filmed us when we were back ground music, here's a little clip:

We were stoked to wake up Christmas morning to a WHITE CHRISTMAS!!!! Never before have we been so fortunate;)

And Santa found us!

It was our very first Christmas just together, not with any of our family. However, Grandpa Sevy had suffered a severe stroke just about a week and a half prior to Christmas, and consequently, Christmas Eve right as they had just locked up M & S-- his business-- for the day, they received word that he'd passed. He truly was home for Christmas, he had a white Christmas too, but I'm sure it was even so much better than ours. Because of this, we were now able to go home just after Christmas, as I was given 6 days to go home for the funeral.

I know that Grandpa knew what he was doing, He just wanted us all together for the holidays, and that's what he got. My cousin flew in from Afghanistan, another from Japan, and for the week and a half that he lie in his hospital bed, my family all sat together and sang and performed and played their instruments together. What a tremendous blessing that was for them, and for Grandma to be encircled by her loved ones standing by her through that trial. Grandma was a rock, I couldn't believe her strength. What an example to me she is of such courage and endurance.

Plane tickets were insane-- almost quadruple what they'd normally be, so we made the 15 hour drive home. I knew our families were praying for us to have a safe drive and especially for us to stay awake-- just as it was starting to get late, out of nowhere I told Fuzz I was totally going to puke! No-- I'm not pregnant. I couldn't even get anything to come out of me but I felt awful! It was that horrible feeling we've all felt at some point in our life, where ya know you'll feel better if you can just puke your guts out. . . but it won't come out! Oh, I just felt soooo sick, I kept moaning, and whining, and crying. . . but oh what a blessing that was, because now me and Fuzz were SO awake-- eventually it came, and I litterally puked my guts outs-- and felt better for a second then just sick again--- we eventually found a hotel parking lot and fell asleep in our truck for a couple hours-- I felt too sick to sleep, but eventually surrendered. I woke up and Fuzz was just beginning the rest of our drive home, the sleep had worked wonders on my upset stomach-- I felt a trillion times better. As much as I complained about how horrible I had felt-- I knew that it really was one of those blessings in disguise;) We safely made it home early December 28th, Mckenna's 11th Birthday! We were there for her Birthday breakfast-- and we even got to watch her open her birthday present that we'd sent about a month prior in the mail with all the Christmas presents. It was a dress;) and I'm pretty sure she loved it-- it looked ADORABLE on her! We were so happy we were able to be there to share that special day with her. That night was Grandpa's viewing. It was bittersweet-- I looked at him in the casket-- it wasn't him, just his body, without his spirit his body was just a body-- that wasn't my grandpa. It was so neat to see all of my cousins and their new little familes there! It was a special time for us to all be together and catch up on our lives.Viewings and funerals can be so sad, it's sad to know that it will probably be a while before we see our loved ones again, but I know that someday we will! And I take so much comfort in knowing that. I know that I'll see Grandpa again! I know that he's probably riding around in heaven with his race horses, for sure with Whinney-mick. He's been blind for about the past 5-10 years gradually getting worse, but now I know that he can see again! He's wanted to so badly for so long. I use to work for his eye doctor, and I saw sooo many eyes, but his macular degeneration was sooo bad. I just about died when I had to pull up his pictures I'd taken of his macula and whitness the actual bleeding and scar tissue, I knew that there was no treatment available to fix it. He's seen so many doctors, and tried so many different treatments, but just continued to suffer. Whenever I get sad thinking about him, I just remember that now, finally, he can see again!
I was asked to play a beautiful arrangement of I Stand All Amazed with Tara and Tiffany at the funeral, it was actually written for voice and piano, and we changed it into a harp, violin, and viola ensemble. It was beautiful. While playing we were all so overcome with emotion we had to just play through our tears, but I know Grandpa liked it. He has always been so supportive of us and our music. I know that I wouldn't be where I am with my music today without his help. At the funeral, my cousin Melissa read all of our favorite memories of Grandpa, what a beautiful celebration of his life! I would have liked to added one of mine, and that is simply that grandpa always called me princess, and made me feel like I was one. He always made us all feel so special, and that he was proud of us.

We met over at the grave site and were all astonished to see what spot had been selected, it was right near the corrals where all the horses were. This was the most perfect place for Grandpa.

Here's Mylee with her second cousin Ryden--they love spending time together.

It was so good to be home with my sisters, and my cousins, funerals can be so sad, but we were so grateful to be together and to cherish the relationships within our family.

My cousin Ryan who films for the Amazing Race-- among other things, has been working on this documentary for the past few years. It's called Goolds Gold-- this has been entered in film festivals all over the United States, and we were fortunate enough to be in UT when his premier in Zion National Park took place. It was on the IMAX screen which is like 6 or 7 stories high! It was awesome! We were so excited for him and that we were fortunate enough to be there for such a neat event!

Here's me with Ryan my cousin, and his sister Melissa and his wife, Jenny.
We got our autographed posters, and free CD's from the band that played in it-- super sweet!

We were so blessed to be able to go home for so many days! We enjoyed eating, shopping, and just hanging out together! We spent New years with all of our family, Fuzz's first, then mine.

Santa found Mylee-- even at Grandma's house, and while he left most of her presents at her house in Indiana, she was thrilled at the few he left in St. George--- she loves Hello Kitty!

The best thing about our trip home is always spending time with our family! Especially our brand new lil Ellsie and Kai-- they'd already grown so much since we were home in September!!! They've got the most adorable little personalities, and so know and just love their uncle Fuzz and aunt Channing! Oh, we just love them SOOOO MUCH!!!

Out With The Hot, In With The Cool~

2011-11-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Fall everyone-- so our leaves don't totally change colors here--- crazy Huh?! They just turn brown and die. We're so excited though for the change in the seasons-- it's been a record hot summer and now that we're in November, we're finally feeling a change in the weather;) Here's the Iverson's first "We heart Autumn in Lubbock" pic.

Notice leaves green-- or brown, no pretty inbetweeners-- I took the autumns in New York and UT for granted. . . they were GORGEOUS!!! Now that we know different we'll never take them for granted again.

Wow it's been another month filled with all kinds of lil adventures;)

So we've been debating for a while about whether we should invest in a lawn mower. . . we knew it would only need a couple more cuts before the it was too cold to grow much more, however, it was getting pretty hairy. Because it's the end of the season, we figured that we could get a sweet deal on one though-- hmmmm. We continued to rationalize our way out of needing one right at the moment. . . but then a stranger showed up at our home one Sunday afternoon. He lived two doors down and noticed our yard could use a lil help. . . so he kindly offered to mow our lawn for us, of course his services wouldn't be for free. . . I asked him if this is just what he does for a living, he said, "Nope, just saw your yard, and thought you might need someone to take care of it for you." This was the day when we knew-- it was time to get a lawn mower. Fuzz found one for like a hundred bucks and went to pay for it and it was actually on sale for much cheaper than that!!-- another sign that we were making the right decision:)

So here's our hairy before and after pics:

So worth it:)

Funny story-- So I was just headed out the door a couple weeks ago and as I opened our front door, there behind the glass storm door were two full grown pit bulls anxiously awaiting in-- literally standing on my front door mat. I didn't know what to do-- LUCKILY I recognized the bigger of the two as my neighbors dog, only because he along with his buddy had gotten out the night before and had stirred up some ruckus in the alley behind our house and we went and told our neighbors that Midnight had gotten loose. Fuzz is Midnights, buddy but only through the little cracks of the fence. Fuzz will stick his hand or fingers through and Midnight gets so excited! He's a lil mischevious dog-- Fuzz is always telling me that he is tied up again, to the tramp on like a 3 foot chain because he is always in trouble. One time it was for tearing up a styrophone box covering their entire backyard with little pieces of it, another time--- was for sneaking over the fence and having a sleepover with Rose, his other nextdoor neighbors pitbull, another time he got in trouble for getting Rose pregnant, but most the time he just gets in trouble for sneaking out and getting loose, going wild in our neighborhood. I seldom see him and with so many pits in our neighborhood I would have never been able to tell him from them had I not just seen him that night before. -----k, back to the story. . .
So what do I do? I'm imagining the phone call to work. . . "Um yea, I can't come to work today because I can't get past the two pit bulls guarding my front door." Yea. . . there was no way I was going to call that in. So I just said I quick prayer that I wouldn't get eaten alive and grabbed my banana, purse and keys and tiptoed in my heels out my front door right through them. They jumped up on me but I think it was just to say, "Hey where's Fuzz? We wanna play!" I still got nervous, I knew Midnight was Fuzz's buddy but I had heard that this other dog was not so friendly and didn't know if he'd peer pressure Midnight into turning into a people eater--- I didn't know--! I tried to talk nice and playful, but that just made them jump up and get that much more excited, so then I talked stern,"Sit down DOWN!!! DOWN!! -- off-- oFF-- OFFFFF!!!!! then I thought that maybe I was sounding more like a "bad guy" and that would make them angry, so I panicked and asked them if they wanted my banana and got ready to throw it---- and then remembered that it was my breakfast, and I was hungry and I'd be starving because my lunch break wasn't for another 4 hours, so instead I just kept my banana, forced my way into my car, pushed their heads out of the doorway, slammed the door shut and hoped that they would get out of my way so that they didn't get runover--
So I'm driving to work and call mom to tell her about how lucky I am to be alive and while I'm in the middle of doing this, while stopped at the front of a line of cars at a red light, I get rear ended. Surprised at the sudden unexpeted jolt,---without thinking, I said, "Mom I just got hit-- gotta go!" Luckily it was nothing really- just scared me for a second. I got back in the car to call and tell her everything was fine-- I think she's been my mom long enough to know when I'm in serious trouble, and that this wasn't one of those times, but regardless-- she answered the phone by saying, "I was just kneeling down to say a lil prayer for you!!"-- another tender mercy on my way to work that morning, just another sweet reminder that I'm the luckiest kid in the world to be blessed with my mother.

Another fun adventure for us this month was going out with the missionaries and meeting this adorable couple that live just down the street from us and being a part of the missionary discussions in their home. The man had been baptized into our church as a child but somewhere along the course of his life had fallen away and become inactive. I don't think he had anything ever against the church, just didn't do anything to stay active. His girlfriend was very interested and had agreed to get baptized, but in our church you have to be married to be living together to be eligible for baptism, so at about 8 months pregnant she decided to put on a wedding dress, and walk down the aisle. The baptism date had been set, but the couple was nervous about asking permission from her parents to be married, let alone baptized. They asked for us all to be prayerful with them that their parents hearts would be softened and allow them to be able to get married, and for her to become a member of our church. We all were so prayerful for them, and then we received word that her family was so excited and more than willing to allow both services to take place, and all said that they would drop everything and come support them at their wedding, which was kinda short notice because the baptism was just over a week away. -- and they were from out of town. They decided to do them on the same day, wedding first, and then the baptism. However, the couple didn't even have enough money to afford their marriage license, because now they were paying tithing, let alone money to pay for a wedding, but they had faith that it would all work out. Some girls in my ward and I got together-- two of which were 9 months pregnant ready to have their baby at any moment-- we went shopping together and split up the costs, and because I work, that was about all the contribution that I could make, the other girls were so awesome, and divied out responsibilities and coordinated everything. I wasn't sure how this wedding would turn out with food and everything with hardly any money, I knew that my friends were putting so much into making this the most beautiful wedding they could for her. Luckily she fit in her prom dress still which was white, and had some blue roses on it, so she used that for her wedding dress and they themed the entire color scheme around it. I was asked late the night before if I could play the piano for the wedding, though I'd never played anything but the harp at weddings before, I figured that I could make it work.
I rushed there early Saturday morning-- I was driving behind some maniac driver that was totally speeding, so I figured it was ok if I spead too as long as he still was driving faster. He pulled up to church-- it was the groom;) he was running late too. The wedding was at 8am-- it was about 10 till, I had a mandatory meeting at work at 8:50 so I was nervous to find out that the bride wasn't even there yet. She got there at about 8, not even dressed yet-- I was starting to panic. I didn't want to leave early --- I knew she had to have music while she walked down the aisle of the Relief Society room, but I was so limited on time. Bishop was sweating bullets with me because he had a flight to catch in an hour so we both were nervous together. I walked into the room where the wedding was to take place, it was beautiful. I went into the kitchen and found it filled with beautiful trays of gourmet food I swear taken right out of Martha Stewart Living Magazine! It was amazing!!!! There was a gorgeous wedding cake that someone in the ward-- who I don't even think had ever even met the couple-- had made for them! The cultural hall was decorated simply but beautifully. So many people in the ward had volunteered to make food and contribute their services into making this such a special wedding for them.
8:25 Everything was ready for a go---- they gave me the green light and I played the infamous Canon in D as the brides maids walked in from the hall, and the best men aka the missionaries;) walked in from the kitchen and then stood behind the bride and groom for the service. It was short and sweet;) they did it! Bishop made his flight, I made it to work on time with time to grab a plate full of their amazing brunch food. It was unbelievable. I couldn't believe that this wedding had been planned in a week. It was just so neat that so many people sacrificed to make it so special for them-- It was a neat experience for all those involved.
The Wednesday of that week we'd had our Housewarming Party with a bunch of our friends. We had set the date a while back in hopes that we'd have all of our lil around the house projects finished by then-- we took care of the bulk of em:) Here's a couple pics of our most recent project, stenciling in our bathroom.

\

I was super intimidated by the video's I watched of stenciling online. . . but it actually turned out! YAY-- I was so sure we'd be needing some more blue paint to cover my stenciling failure.
We thought it would be fun to invite our friends over for a fun house warming dinner party in our backyard. We sent our invites and were so glad that so many could make it! They were all so sweet-- it was so much fun!

We wish we'd been able to take more pics, but once our friends started arriving we were just so busy doing all the last min preparations for the dinner.

Here's some of the prep though:

We got the food ready . . .

and then hurried and got us ready. . .

We were just setting up the last few things-- we filled the mason jars with water topped with floating candles-- and then brought out a few more candles--- We knew that we'd need plenty of candles because by the time our guests arrived it would already be dark.

Our shed was our backdrop;) so we figured it needed some sparkles--

Here is the actual menu:

It was a little chilly, so we brought out some quilts and blankets for everyone to keep warm-- everyone was such good sports-- that made it so much fun!

The clean up was so amazing;) we had to take a pic of it:

For Halloween this year we decided to be Maid Marian and Robin Hood-- yep-- fuzz got to wear tights! Ha no, actually just some of my leggings. We went to the church for their annual Trunk or Treat-- and dressed up our trunk as Sherwood Forest with Robin Hood wanted posters-- kinda fun;) There were a million kids!!! They went from trunk to trunk collecting their candies. I was told to bring about 300 pieces of candy because there would be that many kids, I felt bad only giving them each one piece, but after I started noticing how fast it was going. . . and how full their bags were getting. . . I didn't feel quite so bad anymore. It was fun to see all of their creative costumes, they were darling!

So here is a link to the funniest video ever-- here's what happens when parents tell their kids that they ate all of their Halloween Candy-- hahaha soooo funny~!

http://youtu.be/_YQpbzQ6gzs

(it may need to be copied and pasted into the browser)

We are so excited to announce the arrival of our brand new adorable niece, Whitlee Karma Platt. Fuzz's sister's new lil girl, 4th girl in a row:) we have so many adorable nieces! She was born Friday morning-- isn't she so cute?!

We sent her a few outfits and some cute lil leggings we made her--- new babies are just sooo tiny;) hope they fit!

Can you believe it's already that time of year again?! They're already putting up Christmas decorations and tree's all over at my work-- I love it! Though we're not ready to put up our decor yet. . . we're taking it one holiday at a time;) they'll probably go up the day after Thanksgiving.

Well that's about how far our adventures have brought us up till now, sure there'll be some more blog-worthy ones to come -- until next time!

Baby Time!

2011-09-11T16:04:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a while since we posted-- promise we've been busy;) We are finally all moved in to our new home, and feel like we're settling in quite well here in Lubbock. Fuzz has kept busy all summer with a mile long list of "honey to-do's"---- we'll have to post pics. He's just started school at Texas Tech--- and loving it! He started work too about that same week at a transitional learning center, where he works with patients that have had traumatic brain injuries, he helps them with their physical, occupational, and other therapies. They basically are there to relearn how to be as much normal as they possibly can again. It's been a rewarding opportunity for Fuzz to be able to go to work every day and just help people-- it has definitely strengthened his resolve to pursue a career in Physical Therapy. Super neat!
Dillard's has been awesome to let me continue working for them;) I've been transferred to another department and actually been made the new business manager of that department, which was an exciting surprise for Fuzz and I. I don't work any more hours than I did before, and I get to do my own schedule--awesome! Thus far I've just LOVED it! The only thing that I feel I'm struggling with is being so overwhelmed by so many cute clothes. . . and our discount doesn't help me rationalize my way out of buying them. . . especially because it's kind of part of the job to dress to represent our area. . . . . that last part is what normally pushes me over the edge-- ;). It's difficult not to cave when you work all day with such cute clothes and can get them for such a sweet deal. I love the girls that I work with-- they are such great people, and good hard workers that make coming to work each day all the better.
We just got back from UT visiting family for the baby blessings and Shaye's Court of Honor where he received his Eagle. Tiffany and Austin have an adorable new baby boy, baby Kai, cutest lil guy ever! Tara and Trav welcomed their first baby this summer, lil baby Ellsie. They were both blessed last Sunday-- it was so neat for to be there for such a special event in our family.
Lil Shaye-- boy how he's grown! We haven't seen him since January-- I couldn't believe how much he'd grown! He'd grown physically, but I was dumbfounded by his emotional and spiritual growth. He's gone through so much this past year, but with those trials he's gained so much strength -- those trials have built him into the handsome young man he is today! We were so glad that he was able to have his Court of Honor while we were home. There were so many people there to support him, and congratulate him for this great accomplishment-- it was awesome!
Well they say a picture is worth a thousand words. . . and we took tons while we were home-- of everything! Here a sneak peak of our short vacation home last week with our family:

Fuzz holding for the first time our new lil niece Ellsie Rose

Tiffies lil baby Kai Shigaroo

Tara with her Ellsie

Fuzz with his baby Boots;) He always goes crazy and gets so excited when we come home for a visit.

We flew in from Lubbock, to Albuquerque, to Phoenix to Vegas, and then Fuzz's mom was nice enough to pick us up in Las Vegas and drive us back to UT. We went and cleaned up a lil and then drove over to my parents house to meet our new niece and nephew and say hi to our family before we headed up to Pine Valley that night for Fuzz's Iverson reunion on their property up there. We had an amazing dutch oven dinner and then moved everyone into Uncle Don's cabin for a jam session-- they were so much fun! It was so good to be there and see everyone especially Fuzz's dad who had driven up from Colorado to be there.

The next morning we woke up bright and early for church-- here's Mylee and baby Kai all ready to go!

We don't know how long it will be until all of us are in the same place all at once again, since I work retail, we probably won't be going home for the holidays, so we took advantage of this morning while we were already dressed for church anyway to take some family pictures out in the yard. . . it wouldn't be a trip home without family pictures! haha

Here we are!

All of our handsome men. . .

and their princesses;)

They were taking pictures of all the lil families. . . and while it might be small. . . this is ours;)

We'd made Ellsie a cute lil outfit and shoes and a headband to match. . .

but it took us a second to think of what we could make for My and Kai. . . my friend at work suggested sock puppets-- we looked up how to make em on you tube and then put are learning to the test and viola! I was surprised at how easy and inexpensive this craft was for us-- I love cheap and easy crafts! Mylee has already named them. . .Socky, and . . . I blanked the other name, but something just about as original as "Socky":)

Here's Fuzz and baby Kai

Ok time for the baby blessings. . .

Proud aunt and uncle to the new lil cuties.

Here's baby Kai with Ellsie and our neighbor Jamaica's new little Jaida hanging out all together on the floor--

This is the golf course that Fuzz went and golfed with his cousin Todd, his Mom and her friend Charlie-- such a beautiful place!

It was an afternoon of "bonding;)" as later that day Fuzz went golfing with both of my sisters husbands while us girls went shopping--super fun!

Shaye's Court of Honor:

Mom's son-in-laws are all Eagle scouts, so she thought that it would be fun to include all of them in the court of honor, they all did such a great job!

Glen works with my dad and is the chief of the local Paiute tribe in southern Utah. He's the one that came up with the idea for Shaye's Eagle project. He, with the help of his awesome scout leaders, and donations from garage sales etc., put together a monument to recognize all the veteran's from the Indian reservation. It turned out beautiful! It has meant a lot to many of the ancestors of those that sacrificed so much to defend our freedoms. There have been flowers, and vases, candles, and other treasures left there by those that come to pay tribute to those great men.
To show his gratitude for Shaye and his completion of this project, Glen gave him a drum that his older brother had made for him with deer hide and wood, because it is made from the Earth, it is deemed as something sacred to the Native Americans. He actually then played it for us as he sang a couple -- it was really a special treat!

We even got a letter from Brittan from the mission field-- also an Eagle-- that Bishop Fry read for us congratulating and honoring Shaye, expressing his love respect for him and his great accomplishment-- It was a neat addition to the program; the whole night was just awesome.

A BBQ followed. . . and then we spent the rest of the night hanging out with the babies ;)

Here's Ellsie with my mom, and then her mom. . .

she kept making all the silliest faces. . .

Silly lil cutie!

Before we knew it, we were already saying our goodbyes :( Kai made us some good sad faces, he didn't want us to leave. . .

We had to snap one more pic before we got home of someone's "carry-on". . . only in Texas does someone tape a Stetson hat box shut and tape on a rope with a wooden handle to hold onto ;) I love Texans!

Shout out to My Dad!

2011-07-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

Wow-- it's been a while. Quick update: Fuzz and I are finally in our house! We have been working non stop to transform this house into our home. . . and are just about there! It's been a ton of hard work-- but all worth while. We'll have to post some before and after photo's so you all can see what we've been up to;)

A couple weeks ago was Fathers Day, and an extra special Fathers Day for Fuzz and I because that was also our 1 Year Anniversary! We were asked to actually speak that Sunday in our Ward and introduce ourselves, as well as share with the congregation a little bit about our Fathers. It was fun to get to sit down and think about what kind of a Father I'd been blessed with-- wow, how'd I get so lucky. Here are a few segments of my shpeal about Fathers, and a little of what makes my dad so special to me. . .

Last Sunday, Sister Thompson had asked me to sub as Primary Chorister for her because she was going to be out of town. As we were practicing our song for Sunday on Fathers, we included within our activity a segment where all the children participating got to share with us something special to them about their dad-- we got all kinds of fun responses! "My dad takes care of me, my dad plays catch with me, my dad is funny, my dad spends time with me, my dad protects me, my dad tells me he loves me. How blessed these sweet children are to have such great Fathers that they love and care so much for.

As I listened to their responses I couldn't help but think of how I would respond to that question. There are so many things that make my dad special-- and today I'd like to share a few of those things with you.

My dad has always made a special effort to let us know how much he loves us. He makes sure to not only show us-- but tell us too! At night my dad would make sure we were all in bed and tell us goodnight, and remind us that he loves us. In addition to that, he would often tell us bedtime stories, including, "Percy the Pop Belly Pig" a silly fictional character he'd created to entertain us to sleep--( my dad is the Greatest storyteller by the way! Haha each character would have their own unique voice, so we could just close our eyes and imagine their adventures. He'd tell us about Percy, Licky, and Rose, and Percy's family -- the Jones'. This was something that our dad did that helped us to feel so loved by him. We knew he was exhausted at the end of his workday and would have to repeat his impromptu story going from the bedroom to bedroom so that we could all hear it. It was a simple sweet thing that he did, that meant the world to us!

My dad is the friendliest, most Christlike person I know. There was an artist that lived in our ward, Del Parson, that would paint pictures using the members of our ward as models for his paintings. At a very young age I remember him using my dad as a model for a painting he did of Jesus Christ with his apostles--- this was a tangible visual of my dad representing Christ.

Whenever I see that picture, I think of how Fervently in every aspect of his life, my dad strives to emulate the Savior. In all that he says and does he takes thought and while remaining human, with inevitable mortal imperfections, he still exceeds the epitome of perfection in my eyes. He is one of those people that just makes you feel special, in all of his callings he exceeds any and all expectations of rendering service to those whom he works with, and also who stand in need of it.

He's one of those people that is always involved in the community. He saw a need for my brother having been the football captain of his team but after injury to his leg, and lack of enthusiasm based on the crude and discouraging remarks and attitudes conveyed from his coaches and teammates, decided football wasn't his thing. My dad got a bunch of people involved and began a rugby team at his high school! This was a huge undertaking, involving lots of fundraisers, paperwork, organized trips up to northern Utah for tournaments and games, BBQ's etc. This has been a tremendous blessing for my little brother! He's been surrounded by positive influences because of it. In rugby, your team is your family. If you have to miss a practice for something family oriented, there are no if, and's, or buts about it--- you be with your family, period. Lack of food-sportsmanship is not at all tolerated, and without even a warning you will be kicked out of the game for it, this goes for parents and fans as well.

This is just one example of my dad recognizing a need and doing everything in his power to help resolve it in any way that he could.

For Christmas this past year, my dad, and his family-owned business recognized a need, and started a drive to help the Shivwit's Indian tribe be able to have a Christmas for their families--he coordinated everything and made assignments. Fuzz and I got to help shop for presents and then wrap them with some of my other siblings. My dad got to go with Santa to deliver the presents to the families. Among them was a family with a little boy who was dying from cancer, who knows how many more Christmas's he'd be able to celebrate here with his sweet loving family.
Anyways, it's just things like that, that are a normal thing for my dad. This is just the kind of person he is. I came across a note a while back that apparently my dad had saved from a young boy that was really struggling in various aspects of his life, including his activity in the church. I remember my dad trying to include him in activities as he was over the young men of the ward, I remember him especially reaching out to him, -- I read the note. . . "Brother Sevy. . . . Thank you!" He thanked him for including him and told him what a great leader he was. I can only imagine how much that meant to my dad; I couldn't believe that THAT kid had written that letter to him. He knew that my dad sincerely loved and cared about him, and I know that my dad's efforts significantly influenced this kid for good.
My dad would always encourage us to be kind to others. Every day when we'd leave for school-- I'd hear my dad yell to us down the sidewalk "Be a friend to someone that needs one!" We'd always respond "kaaaayyyyy we will!" And we always tried to. We'd look for "the one" the one sitting alone at lunch, or recess, or wherever else-- and we'd try our best to "be a friend" to them.
My dad would meet just about every guy I ever went out with before I ever left for a date-- not with his shot gun, I don't think he even owns one of those, but because he sincerely cared to get to know them and would be very optimistic with them, test a lil bit of his dry humor on them and then candidly ask em what we'd be doing and about when he could expect me home ;) always with a smile. Several times my dad would hurry home to see me off to a dance or a date, it was something important to him, and really meant a lot to me, and I know it meant a lot to my sisters too.

On Sundays we'd wake to Sunday music playing in our home, as to set the mood for the spirit of the Sabbath day. My dad would remind us all throughout the day that it was Sunday and encourage us to write in our journals, read our scriptures or another good book-- if we did watch a movie on TV he'd always say. . . "Is this Sunday appropriate?" :) he'd encourage us to write letters to missionaries, and just fill our day with wholesome uplifting activities. One other special thing that he did was take us aside every once in a while on Sundays and give us an interview-- not anything scary, just ask us how we were doing, what our goals were, and our plan to accomplish them-- he'd ask about the progress on previous goals. He'd ask us on a scale of 1-10 what our relationship was with our Heavenly Father and with the Savior--- every time I felt like I could be doing even better. He would give us an opportunity to discuss our concerns with him or just talk about whatever--he was always a very good listener.

My dad is a worthy Priesthood holder. He was always giving us blessings when we were sick or starting school, or faced with some pretty significant decisions. He always made it a point for us to be kind and respect our mother. He showed us by how he treated her, and us.

He always worked hard, and never once did I find him sitting on the couch watching TV when there was work to be done-- I seldom ever saw him sitting period. He loves to be active and for the past 30 years or so he's woken up 2 or 3 times a week at like 5:30 to go play basketball with a bunch of guys up at the church. He would wake all of us up and get us upstairs to say our family prayer before he left no matter how ornery or tired we were, he'd tickle our ties or threaten us with a glass of cold water hung over us, or turn every light on every light in our room, but he'd make sure that we got up and out of bed for family prayers and scriptures. What a blessing that has been for our family!

My dad served his mission in Australia, and we've been blessed to be able to grow up listening to stories about his mission. I think that Brittan has always just been planning on serving a mission, but I think that my dad's example played a significant part in that. Brittan's been out since February and wow-- what tremendous growth we've seen in him in such a short time.

I want to share an excerpt from one of his most recent letters home. . .

" Wow, Heavenly Father is very much near me, I feel his love like crazy! I'm SO grateful for him and all that he does, I am the luckiest Missionary in the whole world!

The other day we were biking and had an appointment cancel... so I said well elder Flora lets knock on some doors... where should we knock?... he said, you pick, you are the more spiritual one . . . I quickly slowed down and stopped, looked at him and said, "What is that suppose to mean?" then he went on telling me how he doesn't really have a desire anymore to do missionary work. How after all the hard work that he has put in to it he just doesn't feel like he really has gotten anything back. . . . my heart sank, and I listened to him, I just told him that I would do any and everything to help him. . . . he acted like that would never do anything and like it was hopeless. . . we quietly went on with the rest of the day.

What am I going to do...... I thought what would my dad do, and then I thought of all of dads missionary stories....I came to a conclusion... my dad would love him with all his heart! and this is what I have been doing! ...thanks dad;)
And oh what miracles I have seen in this short time so far! I have been praying and fasting and trusting Heavenly Father, knowing that he would help me through this trial! And he has. Nothing drastic but I have seen a change of hear in him and it blows my mind. I will just keep praying and praying for him and hope he will continue! Wow it's just awesome!
I love this gospel sooooo much! it's amazing and changes lives like nobody's business!!!!!"

Growing up whenever we were naughty or misbehaved, he was always good at helping us see what we did was wrong and encourage us to be our very best selves. Just the look of disappointment in his eyes when we did something wrong was torture enough because we knew we'd let him down, we knew that we knew better. He would often ask us, what could I have done better, or I'm sorry I let you down! EVEN though it would OUR fault! Or when he knew he'd taught us something, he'd just ask us why? to which we never had a great answer. I always felt like I needed to do right to show him that he had taught us right. I know that if I was dishonest that it would misrepresent my family, and hurt my parents well respected reputations-- I always felt like it was just "not honoring my parents" if I went against their council and did something I knew was wrong.

I feel like this is similar to how our Heavenly Father is when we sin, or make bad choices. I feel like he hopes that we will learn from the mistakes that we've made and because of our respect and love for him, choose not to repeat those same mistakes again. We represent him, and his church and when we do sin, we are tainting the reputation of our church, with is Perfect, even though it's members may not be. We show our honor and love for Him in the way that we Choose to live our lives. Love is an action word.

I had an experience a while back to leave home and move out to New York City. I was so excited to go but knew that it was going to be easily the hardest thing I'd ever done. I was going alone. That night in Las Vegas when I said goodbye to my family I remember thinking, "WHAT AM I DOING???!!!" I never felt so alone in my whole life. I didn't have a job lined up, I was going to study music, and I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but I knew that that this was what my Heavenly Father wanted me to do. I had to rely so heavily upon him. There were so many times when I was lost or confused or didn't know what to do that I couldn't for whatever reason lack of service or whatever, call my dad or mom and ask them for help. I HAD to rely on my relationship with my Heavenly Father, and he never let me down. It was one of the craziest neatest experiences of my life, I felt like he was my new best friend. I was constantly communicating with him, and being in such a vulnerable situation-- I knew I couldn't afford not to. I felt the love he had for me, and was constantly overwhelmed by it. This situation I was in forced our relationship to grow exponentially. I would never have know how close I could feel to him-- and knowing that I know that I can always be drawing myself even closer to him. This was one of the neatest blessings I took from that 2 year experience int New York and one I'll never forget.

I know that just as our Fathers love us, so does our Father in Heaven. I know that he wants more than anything for us to be happy. I encourage all of us to continue to nurture our relationships with our own personal fathers, as well as nurture that relationship with our Heavenly Father; watch that relationship flourish and grow and experience the joys that will fill your life when you do.

Well there is my shpeal on Fathers. I started this post about a week ago. . . but am not posting it till today. . . which is ironically my dads birthday! Happy Birthday Dad! Here's my shout out to you! Thanks for everything.

Well I hear Tara's about ready to pop, even though she's not due for 3 more weeks, the doctor says the baby could come any day. So Exciting!!! I swear it's a boy, she says that for much as it kicks around she sure it's a boy, either that, or a Channing-- ha I can't wait to find out~!

Tomorrow's the 4th of July. We sang America the Beautiful among other patriotic hymns at church and I couldn't help but notice reference to God repeatedly throughout the song. I was reading in Ether this morning about the Brother of Jared being told that he and his family would be led to the promised land, a land that was choice above all other lands. It was almost redundant how many times they repeated "the Promised land" . . . ."Choice above all other lands. . . which the Lord God had preserved." I remember thinking, " Why does it keep saying that. . ? and then thought "Because it is THAT big of a deal!" We live in THE promised land, a land of liberty, of freedom, of rights and privileges that we so often take for granted. I'm so grateful to live in this great Nation-- established under God, I know that it couldn't not have been established any other way. We are so blessed! I'm so glad to be an American-- to live Here in this beautiful place, and have so much gratitude for those that make the sacrifices to protect and preserve it.

We wish everyone the best as they celebrate our Independence Day tomorrow! Happy 4th y'all!

Hellooooo Lubbock!

2011-04-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

Wow—this past month’s been a roller-coaster ride full of surprises! I don’t even know where to start…

Well Fuzz and I have known for the past month or so that he’d be finished with the army officially April 13, 2011 (yes, that’ll be this Wednesday!!!) Up until the past month or so, we’d been expecting to be finished in August—but his unit is deploying then so they’ll be spending the next few months in preparation, thus moving up Fuzz’s ETS date.

In the meantime, we’ve had our eye on a specific home in Lubbock, that we were hoping to be able to move into upon Fuzz’s completion of the army—but having his ETS date moved up kinda put a wrench in everything. We were hoping to be able to qualify for a loan for the home, but were told that I’d have to have a job there first to even have a chance of qualifying without needing a cosigner. My very good friend, Alan, used to be a store manager of Dillards and was generous enough to help me get an interview at the Dillards in Lubbock. We knew that they only do training for new hires once a month, and it just so happened to be scheduled just days away. With all this taken into consideration, I packed up my car, said goodbye to my sweet husband, and headed to Lubbock. I was interviewed that afternoon, and hired that evening. I was just so grateful that things were working out so well, and for all the love and support I felt from my friends and family—but a meltdown was inevitable. I was in such a foreign place to me, relying heavily upon my gps, without a place to sleep, and not knowing a single person there. I felt so vulnerable. I didn’t know for sure that I’d be hired, so I hadn’t made any serious plans on what I was going to do when I got here. That night I just stayed at a random hotel as it was conveniently the week of spring break and all the Extended Stay hotels were overbooked. I can hardly remember a time that I felt so alone, and completely out of my element. The next day was my training—I was astonished to find a room full of newbies just like me! They were ALL so kind—I felt so blessed to be able to work with such neat people. I was officially hired as the Specialist—super fun brand! Here's a link to that site: http://www.lillypulitzer.com

We’ve got some exciting ideas planned to help improve this new line at Dillards. I’ve been able to work in several different departments, and it’s been so much fun! The more people I meet the more I love this place!

My ward is filled with such amazing people, I’m overwhelmed by their generosity. I’ve had several families offer for me to stay with them in bunk beds and such—some of these people I have never even met—but they were willing to invite me, a stranger into their home, because they saw a need and jumped at the opportunity to help. I still am in awe! However, I couldn’t know that some little kids were giving up their bed to a stranger just so I’d have some place to rest my head at night, so I have just been staying at a hotel—like an extended stay—for the past few weeks. It’s been fine, really. First couple weeks were a little rough when I realized what kind of people live in places like this—and my totally broken toilet didn’t help any, (which was broken before I even got here and then took an ENTIRE week for them to finally fix.) Yea, I still was charged full price for my room—I sure as heck fought em on it, but at the end of the day, I didn’t have a choice- I'm still considering a nice chat with our BBB. Anyways, things really are just getting better and better every day;) Fuzz will be here on Wednesday! I’m so excited! He’ll be here a week with me in the hotel and then next Tuesday. . . we will finally close on our house!!! We are stoked! We’ll have a few projects right at first to keep us busy. . . we want to refinish the wood floors, tile the bathrooms and kitchen, and repaint most of the interior of the home—other than that, just little things here and there. It’s about a 70 year old home, just down the street from Texas Tech—so Fuzz will get to ride his bike to school every day—he’s so excited!

Things have just been working out so good for us, we feel so blessed. Last weekend Fuzz was able to visit and we were able to watch conference together- what an inspiring weekend! I love conference—so does Fuzz ;) It’s always a great time for us to really sit down and analyze our lives and recommit ourselves to just always try a little harder to be a little better. I know for me, conference always puts me in check. I love hearing all the talks and looking for those ones that I swear were prepared just for me—I always find plenty of them. One in particular that stood out to me was the “To be or Not To Be” talk by Lynn G.Robbins of the Quorum of the seventy. Here's a link:

http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/what-manner-of-men-and-women-ought-ye-to-be?lang=eng&query=to+be+or+not+to+be

I love how we were encouraged to work on becoming more than just checking things off, but recognizing the significance of the process. I am all about “to-do” lists—which are great for some things, but other things require a constant effort, and there is never a check-off date, like we can never be finished having integrity, or being humble etc. Elder Robbins talked about how important it is not just to look at our kids report cards and commend them for their grades, but even more so for their great study habits or perseverance. I love that!

Well this past month has been filled with adventure and I can only see more of it ahead. . . we can’t wait! Haha but we’ll for sure keep ya’ll posted—I’m getting accustom to the language of Texans…. They're “Fix’in” to do just about EVERYTHING haha and people don’t understand who or what I’m talking about unless I throw in a “ma’am”, “sir”, or “Ya’ll” in there. I’m working on my communication skills. . . haha doesn’t come natural for this Utah’n—haha I’m makin progress though;) We’ll for sure keep ya’ll posted on all of our craziness—Thanks for readin’ . . . “Ya’ll have a blessed day!”

The Life of Hy White

2011-03-07T08:40:00.000-08:00

My very good friend from New York's Father passed away this last week. Alan's videography skills are incredible--he put those skills to great use creating this website dedicated to his loving Father, Hy White, including videos and pictures taken throughout his life and especially his musical career. He was a stellar guitarist and performed with the best of the best. THIS VIDEO IS AMAZING!!! We were floored when we watched this incredible tribute to Hy White-- you will be too!

Click here for a link to the site:

http://www.hywhite.info/

ps. you might wanna keep a tissue handy...

"Just A Dream" by Nelly - Sam Tsui & Christina Grimmie

2011-03-05T15:39:00.000-08:00

These two kids are favs on youtube and got together and recorded their version on "Nelly's Just a Dream" ---talented kids!

Update on our Craziness...

2011-02-25T08:25:00.000-08:00

I left the last week of February to come back to UT for Brittan's farewell-- Well I thought that was all I was coming for, but little did I know all that I was about to encounter on my visit home. Fuzz and I were going to be separated for about 3 weeks because he was going to be out to the field training. Because of this, I planned on staying in UT for 2 of the 3 weeks so that I wouldn't be alone here in El Paso for so long-- conveniently for me, Brittan's farewell fell right in the middle of that time frame, and although we had planned on both Fuzz and I being home for that-- the Army had a few plans of their own, regardless of the situation-- Fuzz had to stay for training and their was nothing we could do to change that.
I flew into Phoenix, and then got right on my next flight to Las Vegas where my dad and Uncle Wes were there and nice enough to feed my starving belly and give me a ride home.
I had heard the night before I flew home that there was going to be a performance and I was invited to participate. I knew that I hadn't played that harp forever-- my celtic one, as my normal harp that I play with was still in El Paso as it wouldn't fit in the plane's overhead compartment, so I was concerned about there even being enough strings on it, and even more concerned by the fact that I hadn't played with my family for about a year! And we had no time to all rehearse together-- and I knew that they had kind of rearranged some of our songs to exclude the harp part ;( as I wasn't there playing with them throughout the year and they had to improvise to be able to cover all the parts. So, no way was I going to get home from traveling all day, and go strait to a performance and make myself look like I was clueless at what I was doing, and make this beautiful thing that they had look bad.
I got home and had about 10 min to tune the harp and go over a couple things with Brit. . . . then we had to get to our concert.
I don't know how they talked me into it, but before I knew it I was on stage trying to pick my brain apart and remember what all of our songs were, how they started, what key they were in..... haha I couldn't believe I was actually going through with this. I think what it all came down to was who we were performing for. The McArthur family owns the "Temple View RV Park"-- they are the neatest family! They have had us come and play for them about every year since we started our band-- like 12 years or so. I think they were our first paying gig, and there are some of the same people there every year that have literally watched us grow up performing for them. Each time we perform there they always are so gracious, and make us feel so special. As I was contemplating making an appearance, I thought about the last time I had performed there... it was the night I left my family and life in Utah and flew to my new home, New York City. I remember performing there thinking that it was the last time I'd be playing with my family for a very long time, and I think that I'd never realized until that night how lucky I'd been to have the experience of performing with my family, and I couldn't believe how much I was going to miss that. Those people that we'd performed for were so excited for me, and so supportive. I left straight from there, went home and unpacked the car full of instruments, and replaced them with my suitcases. We all packed in and drove together down to Las Vegas McCarran Airport, and I did the hardest thing I'd ever done in my whole life. I said goodbye, not having a clue what was ahead of me, but knowing that this was something I needed to do-- no matter how impossible it felt. I couldn't stop crying as I sat at my gate thinking, " What am I doing!!!" but as the night went on, I witnessed little miracle after miracle confirming that I was suppose to be doing this.
I thought a lot about this experience as I was home, and thought so much about Brittan, and him having to say goodbye to all of us. He's so much braver than I was!
Thinking about ALL of this... how could I not go perform that night. I was more scared than I've been in a long time performing, but it actually ended up being such an awesome performance-- I'm still flabbergasted at how we all managed to pull it off so crisp! It was one of our most solid performances ever--- so crazy!

My mom was asked to be on a committee with some influential women in scouting and was asked by Sister Nadauld-(her husband is the president of DSC and she was a past General Young Womens President) if my family would be willing to perform throughout the dinner and that Tara and I do a special musical number. The guest speaker of the night was Sister Lant, who just got released as the General Primary President. It was such a neat night-- and such a cool tribute to all of these women who have served for so many years in the scouting program. We were thrilled to be a part of such an amazing event.

Sunday was Brittan's farewell and he'd asked me and Tara to play for it. He gave the neatest talk, it was just sooo cool! We had a ton of our family and friends there-- so good to have the support of so many loved ones.

Tara had a big performance with Dixie State College up in Salt Lake City where the Arts Department was going to perform at the Capital Theater for the State Legislature. This was to give them an opportunity to show them what's going on at Dixie and how amazing all of their programs really are... in hopes of warrantying more funding ;) When they found out I was home for a couple weeks, they asked me if I could help them out and play the harp with them-- which I was glad to do, but was now committing to several rehearsals up until the day of the performance, and that would be a drive up and back in the same day-- knowing that the following day we'd be driving up with Brittan to Provo, escorting him to the MTC.
I hadn't performed with a Symphony since before I left for New York-- and I had already played this song they were performing up there before, Jupiter-- it was gorgeous. Also, I'd not done a lot of fun things like that while I was in college, and it would be fun knowing I was going to be able to go up with Tara and to be able to spend time with her-- plus, it would be helping them out, so why not?
I was suppose to be up and start loading the harp at about 6:30am. I'd set a million alarms on my phone, because I've been doing some training for our home based business we're just starting and wasn't able to get to bed until really late. So I wake up to Tara calling me at about 6:45 saying, "Are you already here?" I looked at the clock and totally started freaking out!!! I hadn't even packed my stuff I was planning on taking up, and all of my concert black attire and I had to get dressed and ready and be up to the college by the time the buses left... at 7:00am. So my parents hear me going crazy downstairs and run down to help me get everything ready-- my superhero's! Then mom gives me a ride up to the college-- I felt like I was a little kid again, having my mom drop me off-- haha but I couldn't have been more grateful for her and my dad helping me get there before it was too late. The charter buses were all packed up and ready to go-- there were 5 or so of them. Tara had saved a seat for me, and they'd already taken care of the harp. Surprisingly enough, I was not the last person there---
It was a good long drive. I tried sleeping most of the time but was surrounded by all these little college kids. I can't ever remember being so young!!! haha I forgot how much kids flirt in college with each other, and how loud and dramatic they all are-- this was a very good reminder. I had taken a Benadryl for my allergies... which knocked me out in no time---- thank goodness!
We finally got to the Capital Theater in Salt Lake City-- it was gorgeous! We had rehearsals really quick and then had the rest of the afternoon to walk around until dinner... and then our performance shortly after. It was FREEZING cold and the smarty I am only wore flip flopps-- there was like snow on the ground-- I totally wasn't thinking. So Tara and I went to look for some warm place to rest because it was like 4 degrees outside and we were totally numb. We finally found a Starbucks!!! I got a muffin and some Apple Cider-- and Tara got a treat and Hot Chocolate. We were there for about an hour, afraid to go back into the cold again. . . although it was inevetable- we knew we'd have to eventually.
Tara had to be back extra early because she had to perform for the reception that was being held in the foryer, and I had to get the harp tuned.

I swear Starbucks never tasted sooo good!!!

The Symphony let me borrow their harp since I'd left mine in El Paso. Can you believe they fit this in a PT Cruiser?~ yea me neither.

This theater was Gorgeous! Travis drove up after he'd gotten off work, and picked up our buddy Maren in Provo, because she wanted to come to see the performance, and then Travis' sister, Jessica lived right up the street, from the theater, so she came along too!

This was right before our number-- don't we look soooo excited!!!

I kept taking pictures of this place all day-- and Tara swore it would look a million times better at night. On our way out, I'd almost forgotten-- I told everybody I'd catch up but I HAD to take a picture-- Trav said no, but Tara told him that we had to wait because I'd been waiting all day for this picture. Trav grabbed my camera and said, "Well then, you'd better be in it then."
Tara was right-- it looked so much better at night.

Travis drove us home so we didn't have to ride back on the bus-- it was nice and everything, but THANK YOU Trav!!!

We got home at about 3-- I did more training and then woke up at 7:00 to head back up to Provo. Tara's teacher wouldn't let her come :( but she would have if she could.
I was glad to be able to spend time with the fam on our drive up-- the whole drive was kind of our"Goodbye" to Brittan. We had some neat discussions, and good talks.

Here's the Provo Temple just a block away from the MTC:

It was so pretty there!

Our last 5 min. with Brittan...

Such a brave kid! He said his quick goodbye, and that was it.

We turned around and came straight back home-- it really was a beautiful drive.

I got to spend time with Jordan the next morning (she's my niece, her mom is Fuzz's sister KenDe.) We had so much fun together!

When we'd gotten home from the MTC, we pulled up into the driveway and I received a text from DeAnn, that Fuzz's Grandma had just passed away. She'd had Pneumonia and had just gone down hill from there for about 3 weeks or so. We were so sad for our loss-- she was such a neat lady, but we know that she isn't suffering anymore and she's with her sweetheart that had passed away about 20 years ago.

Fuzz was able to come home for the funeral-- but because of some complications with the Army transporting them all back from the desert-- he'd missed all of his flights, and had to drive the whole way here straight through the night.

He made it!!! He dedicated the grave, and gave the most beautiful prayer-- we were so glad he was able to make it and give such a special blessing at her grave site.

I dare say that this was one of the most incredible funerals I'd ever been to. It was such a neat tribute to Karma and celebration of her life. There were so many neat stories told about her-- we were so lucky to have known such an amazing person. They had Tara and I perform at it, which we were honored to do. It was so hard not to get choked up while we were playing, because it was such an emotional day-- but we made it through it! I was grateful to have been able to be a part of such a neat event. I came away from that funeral thinking ,"I want to live my like more like Karma did." She was such a great example.

Everyone loved Grandma.

The Relief Society of Grandma Sorenson's ward organized a funeral luncheon for the family and close friends. It was amazing! They did such a great job.

Fuzz's nieces were so excited to have Fuzz home!!! They always tackle him-- one of these days they'll get him down.

With Fuzz in town, we were able to go to the Temple together. We went bright and early one morning, and couldn't believe how many people had beaten us there! It really was increadible how many people were there so early! We were so grateful to have been able to go there while we were home. It was the neatest thing to be able to go to the temple-- every time we go, we leave thinking, "When can we come back!" It is surely one of our greatest blessings.

We were able to participate in a Temple Prep class last night with a young couple that is wants to take their small family there and be sealed. We were so grateful to be able to be a part of that meeting and share our excitement for them, and of the temple. I felt like it was impossible for me to even verbalize the love that is felt there, and the importance of having a Temple Marriage. It's something that I hope we'll never take for granted-- just so special.

Well Fuzz came home the other day---- and surprise! As if I haven't had enough of those lately... He's going to be leaving the Army months earlier than we'd planned-- probably the first week or so in April!!!! As opposed to August- which is what we'd been planning. His unit is deploying so they wanted to get those that weren't coming with them kind of out of the way. We'll probably be heading back to Utah to stay with family until the fall when school starts-- Fuzz just put in his application for Texas Tech University!!! We just toured the campus last week and loved it! We were able to meet with a Realtor and tour some homes in that area that we've been looking at online-- one in particular that we're seriously looking into...

This should be a crazy next month or so for us!!! I'm sure we'll be writing about lots more of our wild adventures soon ;)

Christmas 2010 and We're Off to the Start of a New Year

2011-01-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

Fuzz and I were stoked to be able to go home for Christmas this year and actually be able to spend some good quality time with our families-- we were home for about ten days. We knew we would be greeted by a storm when we got there, but had no idea how far out the storm really was. It was stormy the last 4 hours or so, or our drive home just rain though. The drive from Vegas to St. George was probably the scariest part. The rain was coming down so hard, it was dark, and there were a million cars on the road driving way too fast. With the rain falling, and the water being splashed up from the cars all around us it was nearly impossible to see clearly. I was so tense, and would have totally pulled over had I been the designated driver, but Fuzz is braver than I am, and I totally trusted his judgment and knew that he wouldn't drive in it unless he felt like it was something he could handle. It was a relief for both of us when we finally made it into St. George--- Long day of driving! But always worth it.
I guess it had been raining in St. George for about a week-- this NEVER happens. Living in the desert, we love the rain but hardly ever get it, and when we do, it pours and pours, and then a couple hours later is so sunny and bright, you'd hardly believe what it had just looked like a couple hours prior. We were so excited about the rain, but unfortunately there were flood warnings like the entire time, and people were being evacuated out of their homes because of the storm-- it was kinda a big deal. The surrounding mountains received snow instead of just the rain we got-- they were stunning! -- to say the least. Here are a couple pictures Fuzz took on his phone of Pine Valley Mountain near the beginning of our trip:

McKenna had an especially fun Christmas this year-- She just loves those TV shows like Trading Spaces, where the kids get a whole room makeover, and her room has hardly changed since she was born-- except she's moved up from the crib to a big girl bed;) She's had hung up a picture in her room of what she would love for her dream room to look like someday . . . so we took that and ran with it. The night of Christmas Eve, Fuzz and I, Tiff and Aust, Tara and Trav and the rest of us all met up at Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's with the rest of our trillion cousins for not only our annual Christmas Eve get-together, but an added celebration. . . their 70th anniversary! Crazy awesome! It was a blast to see everyone that night and introduce my new hubby to those of my relatives that hadn't yet met him. After that we all headed home and had an enormous sleep over at our parents house-- all of us. They kept McKenna distracted downstairs while we took turns all helping out in her room upstairs, cleaning, taking out furniture, painting, and then putting everything back together. We were up most of the night finishing up everything, but we did it! McKenna slept downstairs with everyone else and because we were having a sleepover she wasn't a bit suspicious about not going to bed in her room. Christmas morning we all woke up bright and early--we all looked like zombies because of our lack of sleep--well I normally look like that anyways when I wake up, but this time it was all of us. We all met up in my parents room all gathered around on the floor some of us on their bed. Dad began to read the Christmas story from Luke so we'd be reminded of the true meaning if Christmas. . . After that we all headed into the living room and would you believe it, Santa found us!! How did he know we'd all be there?! He knows everything. haha
We had a beautiful Christmas all together! It had been such a magical morning, and then we heard my mom yell, "McKenna, you have so many things laying out here we don't want to get ruined or broken, why don't you just go put them in your room real quick." We all knew what that meant. Ken started walking towards her room with her arms full of her new treasures. . . and we tiptoed just far enough behind her that she didn't know we were actually following her. She opened her bedroom door and then just stood in the doorway, staring. We were waiting for Some kind of reaction, but she was just in shock kinda for a second. . . then we all yelled "Surprise!" And ushered ourselves into her new dream room. She was still, in her head, trying to put everything together. . . and came to the conclusion that we must have done EVERYTHING last night. She was looking all over her room, jaw-dropped, trying to take it all in. She commented that it looked exactly like her picture of her dream room and just couldn't believe it. The funniest thing ever was watching little Mylee walk into the room. . . it was a surprise to her too since her aunt Kenna is the funnest person to play dolls with and Mylee spends most of her visits in that room playing with her. . . she was so stunned!!! hahaha we all couldn't help but giggle watching her try to figure this all out. Finally after a moment she yelled, "Grandma! I didn't know Santa had a Magic Wand!!!! (with all sincerity)" We all couldn't help but bust out laughing! Mylee couldn't figure out why, it was just so cute we couldn't stop, and then she started to make that pouty face that she makes occasionally. . . and then yelled STOP LAUGHING!!! haha which just made us laugh even harder. Then she started crying, and so we had to explain that we were just laughing because she was just so cute. She knows that we love her just hates being laughed at-- especially if it's her mom laughing. She does the funniest thing-- Whenever Tiff laughs, about anything for longer than like a second, Mylee takes it personally and says, "Mom! Stop laughing! Stop laughing I said!!!" Never Aust, just Tiff. They said they would put her to bed back at home and they would stay up and watch a movie or TV show and Tiff would sometimes laugh and hear Mylee yelling from her bed, "Mom I can hear you!!! Stop Laughing!!!" hahaha she is so freakin funny! Anyways. . . Ken's Christmas get's even better. . . well three days later was her birthday, she turned eleven. We all woke up bright and early and mom started making crepes for her. We all got our presents set out for her under her birthday sign hung over the fireplace and began singing her Happy Birthday. Then we all pulled out our camera's and began taking pictures just as we usually do as she unwrapped her presents- I had made her an adorable scripture case the night before and couldn't wait to see her unwrap it! Finally all of her presents were opened and she was grinning ear to ear, sweetest girl ever, couldn't stop thanking all of us, and then. . . there was a knock at the door. Mom said, "Oh that's probably Grandma and Grandpa for you Ken! Kenna why don't you go open the door for them!" Ken popped up and went to open the door, to her surprise she opened it and there were all of her little friends there with presents for her! There were about ten or so of them with Jamaica, who had had them all meet up at her house and then brought them over all together. Kenna was once again standing in shock in the doorway haha she was so surprised. They all ushered themselves in and began immediately to all gather in the living room where they'd seen her unwrapped presents and continued to have her open all of theirs.

Here's Jamaica and Fuzz . . . and Boots all watching Ken unwrap her presents.

This cake Sophie made was ADORABLE!!!

They played a bunch of Minute to Win it games and then all had a yummy crepe breakfast. After that they made home-made lip gloss with their favorite colors and flavors and then got to take them home with them in their little goody/party bags. Later they had cake and ice cream; I'd made her some lemon cupcakes late the night before with the intention to decorate them bright and early that morning, but mom had beat me to it and had "Martha-Stewarted" them up for me. They were so cute and so yummy~ Needless to say, the party was a blast!

Okay quick backtrack, to the day before Christmas Eve. We call this day Christmas Adam since Adam came before Eve haha kinda our family joke. . . and we have a big fundraiser every single year where we sell hot chocolate with our Sevy cousins and friends on the corner by our house, and give all the money we make to a charity, this year we gave all the proceeds to the Ronald McDonald Foundation. We chose them, because our cousin Travis and Lindsey had just had twins and they were born way too early. The Ronald McDonald foundation was such a blessing to them at this time, and helped them among other things have a place to stay while their children were in intensive care-- way neat organization! So this seemed like the best place to put all the donation funds this year. It was bright and early and freezing cold, but so much fun!

Mylee had to test it out for us . . . just to make sure it was good enough to give out to other people ;)

Tara, Asher (big brother of the twins), his uncle Sean, and Mylee.

Here's the Crew---

Little bonding second cousins ;) one from China, one from Indiana. . .both meeting up in Utah.

This was Fuzz's first year! He was getting so into it! Chasing down cars. . . haha just kidding, just doing a great job of smiling and waving and holding up his sign ;)

That afternoon we all went bowling together! Super fun!!!

Tiff and Aust-- who by the way just found out they're having a boy!!!

Mylee's ball barely made it to the other end of the lane every time, but she did so good! Her celebration dance was the best part!!!

Fuzz has done this a time or two . . . pretty much a pro~

Mylee loves her uncle Brittan, he kinda likes her too ;)

Tara, Mom and Dad

Brit and Ken

We just had to sneak in a snow day while we were home. We drove up to Cedar Mountain and the road up the mountain was closed! So we just played around in some snow we found near the base.

Fuzz made a snow Angel--

Mylee Loved the sledding no matter how freezing cold she was.

Fuzz's niece Jordan got the most adorable puppy from her Grandma DeAnn for Christmas, her name is Ellee-- she's a miniature shitzu.

Christmas at Grandma Sorenson's-- everyone opening their presents from Grandma and their cousins. Their Christmas breakfast was AMAZING by the way-- this was my first Christmas Morning at the Sorenson's.

Another highlight of our trip home was helping to shop and wrap presents for some kids on the Indian reservation that needed some help. My dad with his work had put together a donation drive to help these families out, and we got to help wrap presents and then shop for some other families too. This was such a neat thing for us to be apart of and to witness such charity and generosity from people in our community that had seen the sign in the window at my dad's work and had come with gifts for children they had never met and would probably never get to know. One of the most endearing families was one that had the oldest son, who was still a child, fighting cancer. It was because of this that they could hardly afford a Christmas for their family. My dad and brothers went with their buddy Santa to deliver the gifts to these families, truly a sweet, humbling experience for them. These kind of things are what made Christmas especially special for us this year. My mom told me once, in response to my question, "Is Santa even real?" that he most certainly is, Santa is a representation of the spirit of giving, and as long as we are doing all that we can to keep that spirit alive, Santa will always be real. I'm reminded of this as I think of the experiences we had this Christmas season, and the things that really mattered, and those that didn't so much. This was our very first Christmas together since we've been married, wow! We can't wait for next years!

The morning we left to come home we woke up with snow all around us-- and most of the ride home! The scenery was gorgeous we just had to take pictures-- especially because there seldom ever is snow in so many of the places we drove through.

Here's right behind Bloomington--

This was right by the Hoover Dam (we couldn't really see the dam though.)

We stopped by this In-N-Out and everyone was so excited about this snow. An old man came up to me in there and said, "What's all that white stuff outside." Kingman seldom ever see's snow. In-N-Out's seldom ever see snow!

We saw like a million Joshua Cacti. We actually drove through the Joshua National Park.

We got back to El Paso and would you believe it. . . we found more snow! It snowed the next day too!

It's good to be home in El Paso-- but I'm actually going back to Utah this week for Brittan's farewell!! He's going to Richmond, VA, and couldn't be more excited. We wish him the best of luck on this 2 year adventure! I'll be home for a couple weeks because Fuzz will be doing some training for a few weeks out in the field so it will be good to at least be home with my family ;) It's funny how sometimes the timing just works out perfect!

Trans-Siberian Orchestra Concert

2010-12-19T19:09:00.000-08:00

Fuzz was such a good sport going with me to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert-- he was pleasantly surprised when the show started to find out that this was more like a rock concert than anything. This video off of youtube was taken forever ago and totally doesn't even give the show justice-- really if you ever get the chance to see them in concert, it's totally worth going to!

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

2010-12-19T19:04:00.000-08:00

Here's what you get when you combine lot's of creativity, free time, ambition, lights, a house, and good music (Trans-Siberian Orchestra):

Much to be Thankful for. . .

2010-12-19T14:35:00.000-08:00

Okay time for lot's of catching up. . . let's start way back-- Thanksgiving.

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!

"Boemerang": Erik Hartman gives us all a good laugh ;)

2010-11-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

This is Hilarious!!!

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-15T18:54:00.000-08:00

It wouldn't be Halloween without carved pumpkins. . . Fuzz thought he'd be creative and make a castle . . . it was funny when we had some of our friends come over and compliment him on his "temple" ;)

And we just had to roast our pumpkin seeds yummm!

We were Napoleon Dynamite and Deb his girly-friend.

We went to a couple Halloween parties with our friends, and the infamous trunk-or-treat in the church parking lot. There were a TON of kids there, we were out of candy in like 5 min! And we thought we had brought plenty. On our way from one event to the other we were right behind a car collision and went to go and make sure everyone was okay. I didn't even realize we had our costumes on until we were leaving, and they complimented us on them. I'm sure it was quite the site, seeing us all in our costumes on the side of the road with the wrecked cars. Luckily everyone was okay.

So we've finally started climbing again! YAY!!! We went with our friends, the Webbs, and their dog Lila-- I'm totally allergic to her, but she's adorable and so I can ever resist playing with her. We all had so much fun!

Pumpkin Time of Year

2010-10-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

So I've been trying to keep busy with projects -having so much more free time on my hands than I'm use to. We got this couch for free but it was like a blue faded plaid, so I decided I'd recover it. I ran out of fabric half way through and had to wait till the fabric went half off again-- so that I could finally finish haha-- so here it is! That black pillow was another project-- I've learned that for the most part, learning to do projects like this can really save a ton of money!

This is an awesome picture of Fuzz ;) We bought some ear candling candles a while ago and finally put them to use. I had never done this before, it was odd-- but actually really cool. The candles are hollowed and you just light the candle and it creates like a vacuum effect and cleans out your ear canals by sucking out the wax into the hollow candle-- you can see it when you're finished and I took pictures, but it kinda looks gross-- so I didn't post them. But you can do it at home and see for yourselves ;)

We went with some of our friends to a corn maze pumpkin fest-- it was so much fun! It was kind or more aimed towards entertaining the children, which we were the only ones of our friends without any, but it was fun to be with everyone else and watch their kids have so much fun.

Here Fuzz is sling-shooting baby pumpkins aiming at the target, scarecrows, and donkeys that were down there. The guys we were with kept over shooting and launching the pumpkins over the target-- the kid that worked there was loosing his patience with them as he continued to say, "Yea-- it's not suppose to go over. Stop doing that." But everyone was just acting like big kids, just with a lot more strength!

Here's Fuzz with his buddy Harp, keepin an eye on the kids.

Doesn't Fuzz's haircut look great!!! haha So the other day we had to stop in the middle of what we were doing to go get Fuzz a haircut because the new unit that he's in is a lot more strict, and he's having to get his hair cut just about every week or two. Every time he goes and gets his hair cut here, and when he was in New York too, he complains that they do a terrible job, and it drives him crazy! He's very particular about his hair, and likes for it to look nice, so it's so frustrating when he looks in the mirror and sees obvious mistakes when he just paid to get his hair done. So. . . all this hair cutting kind of adds up after a while, and I was telling him to think about how much he spends a year getting terrible haircuts. And then to think about over the course of his life how much he'll spend. My mom has always cut our hair, and when we wanted something wild and crazy then we went out to the salon-- but that was very seldom. I try to think about how much she might have spent had she taken all six of us in and paid good money every time we needed a haircut. Wow-- that would have been a ton of money! So I came up with this brilliant idea. . . I suggested that he let me just try. . . and if he hated it he could just buzz his head like half the other guys in the army do every day anyways. And he gets terrible haircuts most the time anyways from the salon's here, so I kinda felt like he didn't have much to lose letting me try it out. One random night after this conversation, he comes to me and says, "Okay I'm ready to let you cut my hair, right now." I was kinda caught off guard-- and so nervous because I'd never done a fade before-- but he was incredibly patient with me as I took like over an hour to make sure ever strand of hair was just the perfect length. And can you believe, he actually liked it. Even if he were to tell me he didn't-- I have eyes and I've seen his previous haircuts from the places that he gets it cut here-- and it looked dang good! Okay now that I've said this, I'm probably going to be jinxed and never be able to do this again ;) like when I learned to parallel park, and had never practiced before I was in the car with my driving instructor, so I just pretended like I knew what I was doing and I did it -- like perfect-- and have never been able to do it again, not even on my driving test. Hopefully this haircutting thing will be different.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta!

2010-10-08T10:03:00.001-07:00

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go up to the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque! My dad had some work that he needed to do in Santa Fe-- so it worked out perfect for us to all meet up there together! (Santa Fe is about 45 min out of Albuquerque)

Because the Balloon Fiesta brings so much traffic into the city and surrounding areas, it was difficult for us to find a room anywhere that wasn't outrageously priced. After calling hotel after hotel checking availability I decided that my best bet at that point would be to take my chances on Hotwire.com. I'd never done this before, but have heard pretty good reviews from anyone I've ever asked about it, and now I'm a believer too! The thing about Hotwire.com is that you can get a way sweet deal on a hotel in a general area. . . but the catch is that you don't know which hotel it is until after you book/pay for it online. So you could be getting a Motel 6 for all you know- I was way worried when I started looking at the hotels in the area that we were looking into because there were quite a few ghetto looking ones and then further down the way there were a few pretty nice ones. We wanted to stay at the Holiday Inn because we've had good experiences there-- but it was insanely overpriced. I ended up booking a room with Hotwire.com-- and then crossed my fingers hoping it was half decent. And guess what?!!! It was the Holiday Inn room that I'd called to check on before, with even bigger beds then what they told me they had available, and $60.00 cheaper! No big deal--- haha. So there's my quick shout-out to Hotwire.com. Go Hotwire!

So we were off to a great start. . . our sweet room/deal was totally an omen that the rest of the weekend was just goin to be awesome! The drive was fab-- a hundred-thousand-billion-trillion times better than the last drive up there when we drove through that terrible storm and the road was covered in what we thought at the time were frogs-- like millions, everywhere-- totally covering the road, we later found out were just enormous locusts-- like 4 inches + long--- yea there were none of those this drive, and just the tiniest sprinkle of rain, we hardly even noticed it.
We made it to Santa Fe just before 10 so we were able to spend a few hours with the Sevy clan before we went to bed. We got to wake up bright and early so that we could head into Albuquerque to see this:

The Balloons were gorgeous! There were so many of them-- all so unique~

This one was having some complications but we were lucky to be able to be so close to it! Those baskets that they stand in are so tiny-- I was sure they would be so much bigger than they were, but they're really only made to hold just a few people-- I think 4 would about fill it up.

It's the best feeling in the world to be with your family-- and there's nothing like getting a hug from your mom and dad when you've been away from them for a little while-- and a hug from Kenna too! Aren't they beautiful?! I had just made that headband for Ken the other day, and I was so glad it looked so great on her!

Here is the view of the Balloons from the base of the mountain, where the temple is. My parents and Ken hadn't ever seen it before, but they loved it!

Temple grounds are always a great place for group pictures;) here's us with mom, and then she changes into Ken. . .

We decided to check out the Old Historic Albuquerque-- and so did everybody else in town jk but really, there were a million people there! It took us at least a half an hour-- no exaggeration-- to find a parking spot because that place was packed! Here's Fuzz at the front entrance of the old town square.

There were vendors everywhere selling all of their authentic Native American jewelry-- it was gorgeous!

The whole square was so beautiful!

hola mi amigos! I think this would be a great hat to keep the sun off your face-- and probably the whole rest of your body too!

This was probably one of my most favorite parts of the trip! We got to meet some of the actual Navajo code talkers and hear them personally tell us about their experience and show us pictures of them when they were like 17 or 18 in the military. They told us about lying about there age just so that they could join the army. They were the nicest, neatest people. It was such an honor to be able to meet such brave man, who've done so much for our country.

If you look closely on this gentleman's hat you'll see the purple heart medallion! It's not everyday you meet somebody wearing one of those!

In band, because I was a percussionist we had to learn all kinds of different instruments, like the marimba, xylophone, bells, vibes. . . etc. But we never saw anything quite like this! This was like a Hispanic version of the marimba made out of different materials- The sound was incredible! These guys were so talented, it was so fun to watch them, and you could tell that they were enjoying it just as much as we were!

Here was a young Mariachi band performing there in the center of the square! They were high school and middle school students from that area-- we had so much fun listening to them. There was one song in particular that was such a crowd-pleaser. The talent from these young kids was just fascinating!

Okay, so that night my dad wanted to take us to one of his favorite restaurants in Santa Fe, The Plaza Restaurant. It was actually closed for renovation, but we were told there was another one in town, and come to find out it was right by our hotel! The food was awesome, but when it came time for our dessert, our waitress asked us if we'd be interested in the apple pie with green chili's and a cheddar crust. We were like, "Whhhaaatt?!" The combination was hard to imagine-- but she said that she'd be happy to bring us a sample piece to try. This was it. Pretty decent sample size! It was ok. . . kinda had a wierd after taste-- it was edible, but I still think I'm goin to stick with just regular apple pie from now on. Fuzz struggled with the flavor-- but he was such a great sport to even try it;)

Okay-- this was super cool! I'd heard this story years ago, it was actually on Unsolved Mysteries once upon a time. This is the Loretto Chapel, with the infamous, miraculous stairway. The story goes, there were some nuns that wanted to make this chapel into a girls catholic school, but desperately needed some stairs to connect the two levels, set up in a way that the stairs could take up the least amount of congregation space as possible, because the chapel was already so small. They took the matter up in prayer, and prayed to Saint Joseph, the carpenter (Jesus' father), for help as they didn't know how they were going to make this work. At the end of that week of prayer there was a man that showed up out of nowhere that nobody had ever seen or heard of before, that was ironically a carpenter-- who had come to build this stairway for them. He was mysterious to them because he didn't tell them where he'd come from or how he'd even known about their desire for help. He had 3 simple tools and spent the next 6 months in hard labor working on the stairway. There were no support beams used for the entire stairway~ scientist, architects and engineers are still to this day baffled at this remarkable structure that is impossible for them to even replicate as to them it makes no logical sense and defys the laws of architecture! So cool! It was made over a hundred years ago, and still stands, though they did add railings onto it because people were afraid that they would fall down the stairs without something to hold onto.

This is a picture of the stairway without railings as it was originally made. Yea, I can see why those nuns struggled with the thought of walking down without anything to hold onto. As you can see, there is not even a center beam!

The wood was so beautiful!

This stained glass was amazing!

Here was another church just up the block from the Loretto Chapel.

This church, as it reads in the picture above, is the oldest church structure in the USA. I think it was interesting that the Indians from Mexico built the walls and alter under the direction of Franciscan Padres. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the religion of these Indians, and it just reminded me of the pioneers that came across the United States, that tried time and time again to build a temple to worship in and kept getting kicked out until they arrived in the Utah valley and spent the next 40 years building the Salt Lake City temple. It truly was a labor of love. And there were so many people that sacrificed so much to build that temple, loading the granite from the mountains and transporting it to what is now temple square. I'm sure a lot of those people had to sacrifice time from work, so that they could help work on the temple. I'm so grateful for the sacrifices that they made, and for their desire to build this temple themselves, with their own hands, as a place that that they could be free to worship.

I love that there were so many churches in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe-- I love knowing that religion was important to these people, and I could see sacrifices in their labor to bring about these magnificent places for them to be able to worship.

That area was filled with ton's of different art pieces. This one had no explanation to go along with it, so we're not really sure what it's depicting. . . I'm sure something profound about planes and countries all over the world. . . but it looked really cool. . . so we took a picture of it ;)

And that's it-- our fabulous weekend in New Mexico with my family! The Balloon Fiesta was amazing-- so neat to see! It was definitely something that we can't wait to come back to again someday!

Our Labor Day Adventures

2010-09-08T16:33:00.001-07:00

Fuzz had Friday and Monday off work for Labor day weekend. We decided to go to the salvage yard with our buddy Webb to find a couple finishing touches to our new car.

We had never been to one before--wow, it was wild. There were cars stacked all over the place, it was kinda sad to think that there was probably people in those cars when they wrecked, and I'm sure there were many deaths-in a weird way, it felt kinda like we were in a graveyard. I had to just not think about that as we strolled through the car lined dirt roads of the salvage yard. We stayed at the first salvage yard just exploring, and then left to see what the other salvage yards had.

The whole street is just lined with salvage yards-- it's crazy! We went to one huge salvage yard, and the guy at the front desk asked us what kind of car we were looking for. We told him and then he immediately headed out the back door and motioned for us to follow. We walked out back and were just in awe of the number of cars lined up and down the dirt roads of the yard, and then all of the sudden the man told us to get in the car. Having spent all morning looking at so many pieced out cars we were reluctant to just hop in one of them and expect it to actually work. It was a million year old Buick covered and filled with dirt and dust and junk. I was hesitant to step into this car, because. . . well if you could have seen it. . . you'd know. The boys were such gentleman and gave me shotgun, only because neither of them were brave enough to sit next to this interesting fellow. The radio was playing, yea shocker--another surprise coming from this corpse of a car, it was an old rock station just beginning to play Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water as we were stepping into the vehicle-- it was the perfect touch to all that was about to play out. Litterally like the second after I shut the door- the man had his hand on the shoulder of my seat to look out the back window, floored the gas pedal in reverse and started weaving through all the piles salvaged car parts. I didn't look back just clenched onto the door with one hand and my seat with the other, but I could see ahead, which is weird because in reverse I was looking at the trail we were leaving of dust trying to comprehend how in the world we were racing through those tiny gaps of cars in front of us. I wouldn't even have gone through them driving straight! In slow-mo! With someone outside the vehicle causiously giving me direction! Let alone, in reverse-- maxing out my speedometer, with other people in the vehicle! I was freaking out-- what I didn't know was that the the tough army boys in the back seat were freaking out too! That's how bad it was. But they had a little bit more reason than I did, I found out shortly after we came to our abrupt stop. The trunk was totally open. He had been driving like a maniac backwards without even being able to see through the back window! I kid you not!
We'd stopped because we were at the first car he wanted to show us. We didn't find what we were looking for there, so we looked at our Buick, looked at each other, and hopped back in for another ride. This time, we used our seat belts. I held on to mine for dear life as we continued to fly backwards in reverse. We got to another car. He dropped us off this time and then went to go check out another car, and said that he'd be back for us. This salvage yard was so huge that it really would be a workout to walk the whole thing, that's why he was driving us everywhere. He came back and picked us up. It was probably more of an adrenaline rush than any ride I'd ever been on before, but maybe a little of it had to do with the fact that it wasn't a ride-- our lives were literally in the hands of this speedy gonzales-- all the time the Deep Purple playing. . . it was unreal-- the combination of the music and events taking place couldn't have been better scripted if we'd planned it on purpose. It was like we'd just stepped into a scene on tv-- haha really, so crazy. But kinda a thrill! We said goodbye to our buddy at the end of the yard as he sped away in his rockin' buick. Unable to find the parts we needed, we were still glad we'd come.
We were able to go to the Gila Valley temple on Saturday and spend the day in Thatcher Arizona. This Temple is brand new, it was dedicated the end of May this year. The drive was so beautiful. We had never been there before, so when we drove into this little farming town we were surprised to find amidst the rows of fields ahead of us all of the sudden a temple!

So pretty, it actually shared a parking lot with a new chapel too!
I'd never seen that before.

We got in and were ready for our session when we discovered that their time zone is actually different. So we were an hour early. We were able to do some other temple work, so neat, before our session actually began. I couldn't believe how full it was when we got into the chapel. Fuzz and I were among several other couples that had to stand around the perimeter of the room as the seats were all filled. It was a beautiful day, and a special experience for the both of us.

We went to Denny's after that and I think my eggs were bad or something because I felt rotten the rest of the night and even into Sunday. Poor Fuzz is so good at taking care of me, so so patient! He got us home safely though;) We are going to go back this weekend actually with our ward! We've never been to the temple with our ward, and this time we'll actually be going with the youth that are going to do baptisms. We're excited.

Fuzz had participated in a golf tournament that week and his team placed 3rd! He came home with a trophy in his hands, and told me that he got it because they had another competition there to see who could hit their ball the closest to the pin. And he won! He has another golf tournament this weekend, and the army is really cool about letting him compete. He kinda represents them, so they let him take the day off work. Fuzz says that some of the guys don't think it's fair. But he's not complaining ;)

Krispy Kreme Dash for Doughnuts

2010-08-24T08:14:00.000-07:00

This weekend we got to run in the "Krispy Kreme Dash for Doughnuts for the Glazed and Confused" We got our buddies Rios and Jake to come with us. It was a 5k in the middle of town, they had to block of the streets for the race. It was so hot! It made me want to run faster just so that I could get to the end and cool off! It really was so much fun. Fuzz finished in about 22 min--- so fast! He got a drink and then came back to find me on the last stretch -- I had about .1 mile to go, so he ran it with me and cheered me on to the finish line where I finished in about 27 min. We were just about to leave and then we decided to go back and get a doughnut and then we saw them posting our times-- Fuzzy was so fast, but there were a lot more men in his age group-- he still placed 5th which was awesome! I got lucky and placed third in the girl division for my age group, which was exciting and totally unexpected, and so we stayed for the awards ceremony because they gave out medals to those who placed in the top 3 for each category.

The doughnuts were so yummy! We live near a Krispy Kreme, and did you know that you can go there almost whenever and get a free doughnut?! Cool huh?!

Here we're super drenched we'd just finished our race ;) El paso has lots of fundraiser races-- it's really awesome. This run for doughnuts was to help support one of the high school's in our area's cross country team. Here's our last race that we did here right before we got married:

We did this one with our buddy Webb, who also just got married.

We got to go to a chili cook-off the other day with our ward. There ended up being so many different kinds of chili, we just put numbers on these little cups and then voted on which one was our favorite. There were so many that were so different, but soooo good! Though I must say, it's a good thing my mom wasn't there competing with her chili because it would have blown em all outta the water!

So we've been doin a little car shoppin lately. . . takin our time, doing our homework, and finally we found it!!! Come to find out, the guy we were goin to buy this car from lives right behind us, like half a mile or less away! Crazy!

I had to sneak in these pics of the gorgeous plants found all over here in El Paso-- I can't believe I've never seen anything like these, especially because St. George's climate is so similar to El Paso's.

I don't know the name of these-- but I love them, and they're everywhere! One of my favorite kind of flower is Birds of Paradise. These to me kinda resemble them. . . they're like a "desert" bird of paradise ;)

These are so pretty! These are all over the place here-- they're so bright and fun!

Summer in El Paso

2010-08-12T17:15:00.001-07:00

We've been keeping busy, having fun here in El Paso, just enjoying our summer. Here's some of what we've been up to:

We've been doing a lot of "making-our-house-a-home" projects-- here's a table we found for cheap that we refinished -

First we had to clean it, and get it all sanded up -

Then we put our finish on. . . a few coats of stain, and then a clear top coat. . . and voila!

Fuzz is playing on a team for the main post softball league. It's been so much fun going to all of his games! He's so good and has so much fun playing with his friends. It's been fun getting to know the other army wives, my fellow spectators;) We all cheer loud for our men! The other night this little boy was watching his dad play; he was just up to bat, and chose not to swing because he wasn't feelin' the pitches, and his cute little boy was just clinging onto the fence behind him yellin, "C'mon dad, just swing at the ball, why aren't you even trying?!" It was so so cute!

One of Fuzz's favorite things to do in the whole world is to play golf. His mom was so nice and gave me some clubs before we came out here, and Fuzz has been patiently teaching me how to use them ;) I've grown up my entire life with a golf course just yards behind my home, however my attitude towards the actual game of golf was lacking interest. The extent of my activity on the golf course could be summed up as walks across it to my bus stop, and my infamous lemonade & rock stand. (Yea, we started with the lemonade, but then got bored and just started picking up big rocks around us and people would actually pay for us to just stop yelling, "Rocks and lemonade for sale!!!") But now that I kinda have an idea about what's going on. . . I actually really like it! I'm not going pretend it hasn't been a humbling experience for me. . . It's hard being a newby at anything, but even harder when your a newby hangin out with a pro! Fuzz really is so good-- he's been so patient with me. Some golf days are better than others. . . but I'm hangin' in there, just gotta keep on goin ;)

It's all about concentration. . . keep your eye on the ball.

Okay, here it looks like I'm concentrating a little much--

This is how we golf with Coleen-- on the phone;)

Hey!

We've made it a goal to go to the temple every single month, and it just so happens that the closest temple that we can go to is about 4 hours away in Albuquerque. We were so excited to drive up there! We had everything all planned out; we had our rental car, our room reservations, our temple recommends, our overnight luggage-- we thought we were set. So we had checked the weather, and knew that there was going to be a little bit of rain, but we were sure it wasn't going to be a problem. We were about a half hour out of the city driving right towards what looked to be like a huge black hole. Then the rain began to fall. As far, and as wide as we could see, there was only darkness, except for the lightning. This was one of the most amazing shows I'd ever seen! Fuzz and I love the lightning, so we were just enjoying watching it, as it was directly in front of us. Then Fuzz started getting tired, which was something I wasn't expecting, but I was so glad he told me, so that we could switch places. He said that he just needed a little nap and then he should be fine for the rest of the drive, so we pulled over and switched places. I had been driving just minutes when all of the sudden the rain began to pour, like I have never felt so afraid for my life, that's how bad. I became so stiff at the wheel, so frightened because I couldn't even see in front of me enough to know where to pull over, I couldn't see anything! I just hoped that the road would keep going straight and prayed and prayed and prayed that it would. Finally we came to the border patrol checkpoint. It was like a huge covering with like 3 or so different lanes that you could pull up to where they inspect your car and make sure that you're all legal citizens. So I pulled up, never having done this before, and rolled down my window. A young kid comes up to the window and asks if we're legal citizens, and then asks where we're going, and where we came from. I'm getting nervous as his questions are getting faster like, "How long have you lived there?" I had to think about it for a second, and count it up, but he was already spewing out more questions, "Where are you going? For how many days?" I couldn't keep up, I felt like I was guilty, and I totally wasn't! This interrogation was getting ridiculous, and some how I accidently slipped out a little, just a tiny little giggle as I was trying to keep up with his questions. I giggle when I get nervous, I don't know why, I just do-- and he was totally making me nervous. K, this is totally a time where giggling is super inappropriate, and if I could have at all kept it in, I so would have. He asked me if I thought this was funny, with a tone of voice that Fuzz says, "Is not an appropriate tone of voice to talk to my wife with." And then told me that now he wanted to look in my trunk. I was happy to pop it open for him, as I had nothing to hide-- He of course found nothing, and told us to go. Not a happy camper was he-- but I know he was just doing his job, and I had to just tell myself that I really was grateful for that.

So we continued on our way, and suddenly the rain stopped. Fuzz and I had switched places back at the checkpoint, but now that the weather had calmed down a bit, we were switchin back so he could get a his quick nap. Just about as soon as I enter back onto the freeway. . . the rain begins to fall again-- I'm freakin out! I can't see anything, and the windshield wipers are going as fast as they can, but it's not fast enough. There is lightning, and rain, and all these little white things all over the road-- I can't figure out what they are--it looks like they're moving-- I'm trying not to even think about them and just focus on staying on the road. I would have pulled over but I didn't know how-- I didn't know how high the road was and if I pulled off I didn't know where I'd go! Fuzz was watching the road and the rain, trying to help me drive through it and then said that those little white things all over the road were frogs-- like hundreds or maybe even thousands of frogs; some dead, some jumpin--all freaking out, and freaking me out even more! Finally, finally we got somewhere that we could see an exit. . . I felt like I was driving through a river, so I slowed way way down afraid of hydroplaning. Fuzz and I switched places, again. We continued to drive as it continued to pour, but finally after about 3 hours of it, we arrived in Albuquerque. It was really late, and we were both totally exhausted, but we made it!

We woke up early, snuck in a yummy breakfast, and made it to our session just in time. This temple was so beautiful! We took a couple of pictures before we went in, but later as we were leaving, there was evidence of more stormy weather. We had just missed the storm, but took advantage of all the beautiful flowers still lush and moist from the shower; perfect time for some pictures. . .

These flowers were gorgeous! And Huge-- like this one, about the size of my head!

Here's Fuzz with our new car! Just kidding, again. This was our rental car, but I'd take it in a heartbeat! Take my shout-out to Kia's for what it's worth-- Kia's are actually really nice cars, well this is the only one I've ever actually been in-- but wow! We were both super impressed;)

We were going to go climbing while we were up there, but we were both so tired, and still had a long drive ahead of us. With that, we opted to just get an early start home and enjoy the evening in El Paso when we got there.

Super fun weekend, super grateful to be alive, super good times with the Iverson's here in El Paso.

Post Wedding

2010-07-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Wow it’s been an eventful past couple of months—like really, my life has been so crazy busy I’ve been just trying to do my best to keep up with it! Haha well where do I even start. . .
Morgan and I got sealed together for time and all eternity on June 19th in the St. George LDS Temple. It was such a special day for us! Thank you everyone that contributed to making it such a perfect day! Later that evening, we arrived early for the reception to get some fun family pictures in before the guests arrived. . . but to our dismay, the wind was blowing so strong outside that we couldn’t even have any of the flowers or pictures out there—we had to wait till the wind stopped blowing to set up a ton of the decorations outside, which fortunately for us- calmed down about 15 min prior to show time. We were all in a panic trying to get everything ready, and of course there were all the early birds approaching our driveway. . . and I’m in the big white dress, so there’s really not any way for me to just look invisible until I’m ready. That’s kinda the sign for people at weddings . . . just look towards the big white dress, all the other people you came to see will probably be standing somewhere near that. . . and you know that you must pass through them to get to the food. I didn’t know where to stand, and we hadn’t even formed the line yet—
By 7:30 (the time that we were actually scheduled to start the reception) we were all there, finally in line— everything about as in order as it was going to get. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome of the reception— I missed a few of my friends. . . but it’s impossible to find a day that’s convenient for everyone. Morgan couldn’t have looked more handsome, the weather couldn’t have been better—especially for June in St. George—we totally lucked out! The band was Amazing— so much talent! Their repertoire was a perfect mix of our favorite songs! My sister’s and mother couldn’t have looked more gorgeous. My Aunts and cousins couldn’t have been any more adorable as those giggling girls in the kitchen prepared our yummy desserts. Jamaica did a fabulous job at copying the cake from the picture I showed her—so pretty.

The flowers were so full and lush! Our sweet little nieces and nephew were so fun to watch spinning on the dance floor.I hadn't seen my one and only niece for almost a year, and she'd grown up so much!

All the video’s our friend Alan White made for us were just awesome— What as special treat that was for us!
The finishing touch was all of our sweet friends and family’s smiling faces there, loving and supporting us— what more could've we asked for!

We left the next morning right after church to head up to Park City for our honeymoon in our new car! haha just kidding, I wish! We just parked next to this car on our honeymoon, and I decided that if I had to. . . I could be persuaded to run my errands in a vehicle like that--easily! The drive went by quickly; time fly's when you're having fun. It’s so much fun being married to your best friend ;)

We headed home on Wednesday and then spent the rest of that evening packing up our stuff. We woke up early the next morning and went to get a new drivers license with my new name on it. Then we went and ran a few more errands and started packing some more. Our plan was originally to leave about noonish but we didn’t leave 'till after 6.

This trailer was packed clear full! There's a couch in there, and my harp, and tons of other fun stuff. . . luckily we were able to make it all fit;)

The trailer took a while to pack and we had to be really careful driving with it, so we had to go extra slow. We drove to Vegas, then heading towards Laughlin we had something fly down right in front of us and slam into our grill. Fuzz said that he thought it was an owl or something. We just continued to drive for another ten minutes or so and then we came to a rest stop. Fuzz wanted to go get a treat or something and see if there was any damage to the front of the truck---- I watched as he made his way towards the front of the truck, where his eyes got huge, “Babe, the owl’s still here!” It made me just sick. I was way sad that the bird had to fly down and get killed, and sad because it broke Fuzz’s grill on his truck- I’ve waited years for this truck to become half mine and it breaks within my first week of my part-ownership! I got out just enough to peak at the damage--- I saw the bird mounted to the front of the truck with his huge wings outstretched. That was about all that my tummy could take—I had to hop back in the truck and keep my hand over my mouth to muffle my girly squeals—when I see sick things like that, I can’t help but freak out—I don’t like to, but I just do—I just blame it on being a girl—and sometimes us girls just do silly things.

I was being a baby and wouldn't go take a picture of the dead bird on the front of the truck, so I found one that looked just like it-- really, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this the actual bird we hit! See how big these wings are--
Fuzz pried the owl off and threw it on the side of the road—so so sad. I know, we should have at least buried it, but it was so late, and we had so much more driving to do. We stopped in Laughlin to stay the night. I don’t recall ever even passing through that city; it was like a mini Las Vegas.

The room was really nice though and we were able to get some good sleep so we’d be able to get up early the next morning. Well the sleep was good. . . we just got a little too much of it. Yea, we both slept through the alarm. . . and so we didn’t end up leaving until about 7:30 when we were planning on leaving closer to 5:00.

Are we there yet? Almost? . . .

We could see this rainbow from the freeway, and weren't surprised to find that the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow was literally right in the middle of Las Cruces, a beautiful city just outside of El Paso. I have a very good friend that use to live there, and so I wasn't surprised to find it at the end of a rainbow. . . having heard about what a special place this city is.

With the trailer on the back preventing us from going as fast as we would have liked to. . . and the traffic all through Phoenix, our journey was delayed so much that by the time that we got to El Paso that night, the office was closed at our apartment so we weren’t able to sign the lease and pick up our key. It was probably a good thing though because we were both so tired that I think we would have been too exhausted anyways to unpack the entire trailer, and we didn’t have our bed yet, we still needed to go and pick it up from the place that we’d purchased it. The office wouldn't be open until about 10 which was fine because we were able to sleep in a little bit, and still have time for Fuzz's hair cut. He'd been able to let it grow while he was on his one month leave, but now it will have to be super short again, until he's finished with the army.

This was my first haircut I've ever done on a guy. I got half way through and decided that this looked good enough. . . just kidding. . .

Tada!

We quickly unloaded the trailer and then went and picked up our bed, washer and dryer and then went to Fuzz’z barrack’s to pick up all of his stuff.
Our living room was so full that night with boxes and just stuff—I wasn’t sure we’d be able to find room for it all. Well it’s been about a couple weeks now, and we’re just about there. We just have a few more boxes to sift through and we’ll be finished with that. . . maybe we’ll be able to finally hang up some pictures!
Our 4th of July was awesome! Lacked a few fireworks—though, we saw one illegal one in a neighborhood as we drove past—but that was about it for us this year. We were going to go to a baseball game the night before and see fireworks there at the end of the game . . . but our one hour nap turned into about a four hour nap. . . and we totally missed the game. We have a buddy that is getting married next month so he moved in the same weekend as us to his apartment. He had invited us over for a BBQ and to show us his new place-- so cute. And the food was yummy too! We were lucky because Fuzz had Friday and also Monday off work so it was a super fun filled weekend! We’re still exploring our area, and just loving it more and more every day. We’re within about 15 min of two of our church's, a Super Target, couple of Walmart's, Joanne’s fabric store, a ton of our favorite restaurants, the movie theater, our bank, Marshall’s, Ross, Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond, and this way cool store called World Market. . . just to name a few of our fav’s.

This is Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. This city is adjacent to El Paso, just on the other side of the the border. It's crazy how different this city is from El Paso. The first time I saw Juarez I turned to Fuzz and said, wow that looks like Mexico over there! Fuzz turned to me and said kindly, "That's because it is Mexico." I couldn't believe that we were so close to it. I asked where the border was and Fuzz pointed down towards this tiny little stream, really-- so tiny, and said, "That's it." Yea, I can't believe that people get shot crossing that! It's not like I expected a Great Wall of China to segregate the two countries, but this looked like hardly anything!

The closest temple to us is just over the border in Juarez, which is a very dangerous city, with an estimated 8-10 murders occurring daily with all the drug wars going on, it's insane! We aren't even allowed to go over there because there's a rule that no men in the military can even cross the border. So now we get to travel about 4 hours to the closest temple. We were spoiled living in St. George, less than ten minutes away from the temple. Even in New York the temple was less than 5 miles away--
We'll be fine, we'll just have to plan out our trips to the temple so that Fuzz can submit his paperwork to leave El Paso for the weekend. We're aiming for once a month. . . which really shouldn't be a problem. We'll make it work!

We are so blessed to live where we do and thus far to have everything work out as well as it has—knock on wood. Here is a picture of one of our beautiful sunsets. Every night the sunset is just gorgeous, all different colors, just so so pretty!

Our ward is awesome—we’re excited to get to know more people in it. It was so funny going our first Sunday in that ward, and bumping into one of my buddies that I worked with for a couple years in UT at Pizza Factory. She was there with her husband and her cute baby. They were just down here because her husband is selling security systems for the summer. I haven’t seen her for years, and then I run into her in Texas of all places—crazy. Well I probably better go and finish unpacking—hopefully the next post will say that I’ve finally finished! We’ll stay hopeful-

Our Honeymoon!

2010-07-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

We didn't have a lot of time after the wedding for a honeymoon before we'd have to be back to the base in El Paso, so we decided we would go up to Park City for a few days. We had never really spent a lot of time exploring that part of Utah, and while I lived back east-- I was told time and time again how gorgeous this part of Utah is. True, it's about the opposite corner of Utah from St. George, but I had no idea how much different an environment could be just 5 or so hours away from us. It was pretty chilly the whole time and I didn't bring my jacket because I had left a blazing hot summer in St. George; totally different than Park City. Luckily, Fuzz came prepared-- with an extra jacket for me too. It was the perfect place for us to rest and relax, just enjoying being together. We watched some movies, ate lots of popcorn, and junk food, went swimming in their pool sized hot tub-- haha it was awesome. We went and got a couples massage together-- oh, it felt so good! We had some amazing dinners up there-- really, soooo amazing! We indulged almost daily with a trip to Cold Stone Creamery. Wow-- they have so many awesome combination's to choose from-- and they all taste so good!

Downtown Park City.

So as we were telling our friends and family that we were planning on coming here for our honeymoon, almost every person commented, "Oh, you totally have to go to the Alpine slide!" We got up to the resort and saw that we could go on this way cool zip line that was as high up as the Alpine slide-- Oh, so high! I was so afraid but knew that it would be so much fun. We got our tickets and then headed up the mountain.

We finally got to the top, and then hopped off the lift so we could get in the line for the zip line. We stood in that line for over an hour, and then finally we were second in line. Just when we were that close to finally having our turn, we heard a noise. . . turn off. The motor that made the zip line work died. They tried forever to fix it and told us that it was actually new, so it shouldn't have any problems. They even called in back up. . . still, nobody could get it going again. So they told us that we could get our money back for the ride, and since we had to get down somehow. . . they'd let us ride the Alpine slide for free ;)
Here's Fuzz trying to get over his nerves under control. . . just kidding. He was stoked, I was just getting a tiny bit nervous because I hadn't gone on this since I was like 5 and didn't know what to expect.

Here we go!

There were so many adorable little cottages just like this one all over the place!

I couldn't help but take pictures of the gorgeous scenery in here, in the Provo Canyon, and in Midway. Oh, it was just beautiful!

Here is were the slopes were for the Olympics:

This is where the bobsledding took place--

We found one of our favorite restaurants up here-- It was just about as good as St. George where we take pride in the fact that St. George is where it all got started.

We found this awesome fence when we were out exploring-- cool huh?!

Strolling down Main Street. . . we found some awesome art gallery's. One of them, Fatali's Gallery, was familiar to us because we've seen his work down in Zion National Park in southern Utah-- and fell in love with his work there. We were shocked to see him come around the corner when we were there and actually get to meet him in person! He was so nice, and his pictures were just to die for. Someday when me and Fuzz grow up we think it would be fun to splurge on one of his pictures. . . just a lil one. . . our biggest struggle will be deciding which one! They are all so unique- insanely amazing! He doesn't even touch up his pictures with any photo enhancements, it's all natural, and good ole fashioned film-- not digital! They said sometimes he waits months in a certain place just for the lighting to be perfect. Here's a link to his site:

http://www.fatali.com/

Fuzz and I found some new friends while we were there. . .

Main street was filled with so many unique little botique's, restaurants, and gallery's.

It'll be fun to someday come back and see this place in it's "prime" winter months, covered in snow. The cute little gal that helped us at Cold Stone commented, " Ya know when ya look at a Christmas card and it's like a winter wonderland. . . it looks like they took a picture up here! Because that's what it looks like when this place is covered in snow!"

Bridal Pictures

2010-07-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of our bridal pics that we took for our wedding- for those of you that have asked to see pics of the dress, these are the best that we have for right now. I'm sorry I don't have more up close pictures, and we left the dress in UT so I can't take anymore pictures right now. Hope you can see them well enough. I must confess though, I got to a point with the dress where I had come so far and still had the top part to do and without a pattern, doin it on myself-- I was gettin kinda stuck. . . so I caved. . . and begged mom to help me finish it. It was fun to finish it together-- mom had ideas I never even would have dared tried, or thought of, like beading. . . that made it so much more beautiful than what I had even imagined! This was quite the undertaking though... really, I do love the dress, but it took a lot of time, I don't think I would recommend it. . . unless you have tons of time on your hands. I'm just a picky little punk, that couldn't find what I had in my head, so because of my stingy-ness I thought that because I could get the fabric for so cheap. . . most of it was 70% off. . . that it was worth a try. Worst case scenario-- I'd just go and buy one.

Okay. . . with all that said, here's me and my handsome husband!

We were so lucky to have Kristen be our Photographer-- she did awesome!

Engagement Pictures!

2010-05-15T20:19:00.000-07:00

We got our pictures taken about a week ago and we already have them back! We were so lucky to have our friend Kristen come to St. George to take our pictures. Here's a sneak peak of our engagement pictures. . .

My New Life

2010-05-10T09:45:00.001-07:00

This morning my mom told me she had something to show me. . . it was the most inspiring video! It makes me think about how lucky we all are-- and about what things really are, or should be, most important.

Here's the link : http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=bd163ca6e9aa3210VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&locale=0

P.S. Tissues might be nice to have on hand. . .

Life so far in Texas

2010-04-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

Hey this is Fuzz. Channing is letting me help her for the first time with her blog post. These past couple weeks I've been teaching her the ropes- literally. I was introduced to climbing by one of my best buds (Billy) down here in the Paso about 8 months before leaving to Iraq. Since then i can't go enough. I don't plan on ever giving this up, so I'm working on getting Channing to fall in love with it too. I just bought her some of her very own awesome climbing shoes. I'm hoping that it will make her feel obligated to go with me all the time haha. So far it has worked, and I think she really likes it :) ...

We went up to Albuquerque last week with some friends to our favorite climbing gym. Then this week I took her to Sneed's Cory.

Me, Channing, & my buddy Webb

And then in the middle of writing this post we decided to make a quick run to the amphitheater to scathe the walls. I'm so proud of her, and how quickly she is picking up climbing. Just look at her mad skills!

It's Official!!!

2010-04-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

So it's been a wild weekend-- I know that there is no excuse for it taking so long for me to finally post this-- other than I've been on cloud 9. . . trying to soak this all in!

Friday night, Fuzz had asked me out on a date. . .

He took me to Texas Roadhouse-- one of our favorite restaurants, that we hadn't been to together yet since I'd moved to Texas. We had an awesome dinner, and then left and headed to the mall. . .

We went ring shopping for a while. . . and had found some beautiful rings. . . really beautiful. . . but neither of us were totally feelin' it with any of them.

After that he took me to play with puppies at the mall-- and they were so cute! (We went back again yesterday-- because puppies are just so much fun-- even more so when you just get to play with them and not clean up after them!)

Next, we went and played miniature golf together at a place close by where I live- Fuzz put's Tiger to shame-- he's so awesome at golf! And even cooler than that-- he's so patient with me because I am clueless when it comes to golf-- regardless, we had a blast!

After that, we came back to my place for a second, and went on a walk around my neighborhood. It was so dark it made me nervous-- I would never have been on streets that dark, that quiet, that late, in New York-- but here with Fuzz, I totally felt fine. We walked for a while and then finally found this lit grassy hill where we could just sit and talk. But Fuzz wasn't saying anything. I was pretty sure he was going to ask me, but he even made me check his pockets before we left to make sure that he wasn't. ;( I was still nervous though. So nervous that my tummy was all tied up in knots. And he still wasn't talking. Finally, I said-- "Hey, ya wanna tell me a story?" He liked that idea ;) . . . he started to tell me this story about Morgan, this kid-- that really liked this girl named Channing . . . he went on to essentially tell our entire 4 1/2 year dating adventure in 3rd person. . . for about 30 to 45 min. This was a good, long story. . . and I was starting to wonder if he was just trying to get my hopes up trying to be funny. . . and then he got to the end of the story, where he began speaking first person. . . said lots of cute things. . . got down on one knee as he pulled his dog tag chain out from around his neck. . . and there, dangling on the bottom of it. . . was the most beautiful ring!

He asked me. . . and the second he did. . . all of those knots went away and I felt a flood of excitement, rush right through me. It felt so good and so right for me to say "YES!" and then I started bawling, a happy cry though ;) he gave me a piggy-back ride back to my place- and that was it;) Best date of my life!

So now I'M ENGAGED!!! I still get so excited saying that! Fuzz and I were asked to speak on Sunday with our buddy Webb, and we were so excited to hear bishop announce our engagement at the pulpit. We couldn't stop smiling. . . we still can't! We had kind of an engagement party dinner with some of his buddies after church-- we made a big home cooked meal with yummy dessert-- which was a fun treat for all of us. We've been crazily wedding planning and just enjoying being ENGAGED! I still get excited when I look down and catch that sparkle out of the corner of my eye. . . not just because that sparkle is coming from a ring-- that's gorgeous-- but so much more, because it signifies that I'm getting married to the neatest guy in the whole world-- I can't believe I'm so lucky!
Wow-- I guess this is the one kind of blog post that I'm allowed to get a little giddishly carried away on. We've set the date of June 19th, 2010. Hope to see you all there!

Up Until Now. . .

2010-04-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

One thing that I really wanted to see before I left New York was go to the Moth. The Moth is a storytelling night, where there is a designated theme, "Green" was the theme the night I went. Anybody that wants to can put there name in the bag and then if they are drawn, they have 5 minutes to share their story with us. It has to be true, and go with the theme, and can't go over the time limit, or they get points deducted off of their final score. The judges are randomly selected out of the audience-- Lex and I, along with her buddy from work, were selected to be judges (well, one of the 3 judge teams). We had to stand in line for over an hour to even get in, and there were so many people there that most people just had to stand the whole night-- and it was a few hours long! We were lucky and got their early enough that not only did we get in, but we got seats too! It was fun hearing all of the different ways green was used in the different stories; to some it meant new, or environmental, or even marijuana-- it was just fun to hear people tell their own stories. The stories are recorded and are avail on podcasts and some of them even on the radio! The host of the night who's picture is above, (totally looks like Snape from Harry Potter!) is actually a writer for GQ magazine, and had an article in April's edition about moving home after like 20 years when he'd moved away without any intention of coming home for anything more than a holiday here or there--- it's really a hilarious article.
The Moth is really such a great idea! Here's the site: http://www.themoth.org/

So I had just discovered one of my favorite new restaurants, Room Service with my buddies Dana and Nicole, and then headed home to meet Lex. Lex and I were suppose to go clear up town to the top of the island to meet our friend Bobbi for dessert at a new restaurant we'd never been to. We got up there and Lex asked if we could maybe stop by our buddy Brook's house because she needed to pick up something from her-- and since we seldom came up in those parts for anything besides church it made sense that she'd want to run over there while we were already so close.

It took us a sec to find the right building-- they all look the same. We went up and shared our little submarine elevator-- you know what this is if you've ever been on one--- way old school, with a older gentleman carrying home some groceries. When we finally got to Brook's floor, we hopped off and started heading down the hall towards a dead end of all red doors. Lex and I were confused which one was actually Brook's as they all looked the same, all except this one with a big Jewish symbol on the outside of the door that said God Bless. I turned to Lex, "I have no idea which one is hers, do you? Well, hmm... It could be that one, or that one, . . . I know it's not that one!" I said pointing to the God Bless door---- just as the man I'd forgotten was behind me shuffled around me and said, "Yes, this one is mine." I was SO embarrassed! I was trying to say something to fix it when the door in front of me opened and, SURPRISE!!! It was my buddies-- they'd thrown a surprise going away party for me, and had a camera in my face-- haha we had to watch the replay later because I told them how I had already frozen my tongue with embarrassment and then the shock of the surprise too--- had me completely speechless! haha it was hilarious. My friends were so nice! It was so fun to be able to have a night to say goodbye to everybody. Below are some of the pictures that were taken towards the end of the night. You can see all their cute decorations.

This is my bishop, Bishop Orton, and his adorable wife-- I was so lucky to know such amazing people!

Melissa, me, Kelly and Lex-- I'll miss those girls!

Furrr fun!!!

So my moms been begging me to chuck these shoes for soo long. . . and finally, they just up and fell apart on me. I was at the party with my buddy's and looked down to see part of my shoe just dangling. I loved those shoes--- but I just can't make them work anymore. They were so pieced out--- it was time.

I took advantage of my last Saturday in the city. It was gorgeous weather! I went walking all day all through my favorite parts of New York. . . saying my goodbyes to my second home. I went shopping, for the first time since I'd been there-- I went shopping for me! Not for toilet paper, or toothpaste, or milk and eggs. . . but for the fun stuff! It took me a while to get back into it, I used my winnings from the fitness challenge for a lot of it-- even though that's what I'd gotten the money for-- it was still hard not to have buyers remorse. . .

But I don't anymore! Every once in a while, it's okay to buy some nice things to make you feel special! ;) After that, I met up with my girls to go for pedi's and mani's! I just did a pedicure though because I knew that I'd muck up my nails with all the cleaning and packing I was in for and I didn't want to waste it. Everyone's nails looked so springy and fun! We had such a good time together. Later, Melissa and I stopped by one of my favorite places on the upper west side, it's called Caesars Pizza-- but they have awesome gyro's too! I mean-- like the best I've ever had awesome! Melissa had never had one before-- but she loved hers! The weather was so perfect outside that they had all of the windows open, and we were so close to them that we could just about reach out and grab people walking by. . . hahaha well, if we had wanted to. It was the perfect place to people watch! We actually got someone to take our picture -- we just handed them our camera through the window-- haha that was weird, but so cool!

So I've decided that I just LOVE Tai food! I went here with some of my friends and decided it was so amazing I just had to bring some more of my friends back to enjoy it! It's called Room Service, and it's located in Hell's Kitchen, a part of New York filled with fab restaurants.

I enjoyed one of the most amazing chicken pot pies ever created at the Houndtooth restaurant, with my colleague Alan White-- it was my last supper ;( on my last day of work, but it was a new restaurant for both of us and the food was awesome!

I had never made a Lemon Meringue pie before-- until now! I tried to do a flat meringue, so it would be easier to transport. . . but it kinda didn't work-- well we live and we learn, right?

Here are two more new recipe's;) my last two. There is cornflake chicken on the left, and ranch chicken on the right! Yummms!

My last day at work was tough. I went to go and get my regular at the Pax restaurant in the lobby of my building, and starting crying when Jose handed me my whole wheat-scooped-out-bagel, lightly toasted, with butter on the side. He would have it in the toaster sometimes I swear before I even walked in the door! He always knew just how I liked it, and I'd never have to say a word, but "Thank you." It was the best way to start out my day! Such sweet, smiling faces, always super efficient, but in such a great mood! The manager couldn't have been nicer! They always treated like I was such a valuable customer when I'd buy about the cheapest breakfast they offered, a bagel and banana. When they told me to have a wonderful day, I knew they meant it, and I think that they played a huge part in making it just that. Poor Jose couldn't understand my tears. The Manager came over and then the girls, wondering what could have caused this. I just told them that it was my last day. It took me a second to get the words out, and Jose asked me if I'd just gotten fired. Haha that's probably what it looked like, but I told him that my boyfriend had just gotten back from Iraq. "Is he injured" he inquired? He was so sweet. I just told them that I was so grateful for them always taking such great care of me and that I would miss them. They were so sweet as I spoke through my sobs and wished me the greatest happiness, and promised I'd be missed.

I had to hurry and clean my tears up before I got back up to my floor. I couldn't start off my day like this! I knew it was going to be hard, and that the tears would only make it worse.

Later that day, after my lunch, I was surprised again, this time by my colleagues, who had surprised me with some yummy cake, and sweet going away gifts in the conference room. I couldn't keep my tears in any longer. I will, and do, miss all of them! I'm so grateful for the blessing it was to get to know such great, brilliant people!

So I moved to UT for one week, and Morgan surprised me by driving the entire night-- 13 hour drive up from El Paso to come and see me! Mom let him wake me up-- It wasn't the reunion I'd imagined, me and my makeup-less, bed head, morning breath mess! haha but Morgan didn't seem to care much-- and I was just so happy to see him that none of that really mattered. We went to 3 Easter picnic's that weekend-- one at his house, one at the Iverson's, and one at mine.

We got to listen to the beautiful messages given at General Conference, (click here for the audio recording of all four sessions):

http://www.lds.org/conference/languages/0,6353,310-1,00.html .

The messages are so profound, that I dare say, anyone whether they be of our faith or not, would become a better person by listening to the talks and testimony's born. I feel so inspired every 6 months as I listen to the prophet and other church leaders stand and bare witness that God is so aware of our needs, he is so mindful of us, and so willing to help us if we will but turn to him. Each conference session, I feel only replenishes my resolve to just try a little harder to be a little better.

At the end of this beautiful Easter weekend, it was time for some more goodbyes; goodbye's to my family, and goodbye's to my beautiful St. George. . . but just for a short time.

It took two days for Morgan and I to get down here to El Paso. The road trip was so much fun! I live on the other side of the city from Morgan, we're about 40 min. away, but I was lucky enough to have a place to stay, that the commute we feel like is absolutely worth it. I live in a beautiful neighborhood with a roommate that couldn't be nicer. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I'm going to do here for the next month or so. . . besides date my adorable boyfriend. So far it's been super exciting. . . hopefully soon I'll have some even more exciting things to blog about! . . . We shall see. . . ;)

Tara and Trav; New York First-Timers;)

2010-04-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

Wow-- it's been one month to the date since I last posted anything on my blog--- soooo much has happened! It started off with a fun visit from Tara and Travis-- it was their first time in the Big Apple;)

They arrived on one of the most beautiful mornings we'd had in New York since before winter! This was the only full day that I would have to explore the city with them, as I would be working the majority of the time that they were there. We saw lots of fun things together and they had lots of fun on their own too exploring the city together. Tara even won the lottery and so they got to go see Wicked together!

I had to show them the Union Square Farmers Market-- one of my favorite places in the city.

This performer was amazing! He was playing the banjo, singing, using his foot-pedal on his suitcase as a base with one foot and simultaneously tapping his other foot on the tambourine. Awesome~!

Pommes Frites is a restaurant that sells only Belgium Frys and their own fry sauce combinations:

My favorite is the Pomegranate Teriyaki-- Tara and Trav were a little bit sceptical, but they were super sports and actually loved it!

It's kinda got weird decorations inside-- it looks like a shack, with old fashion pictures and decor-- so random. . . so perfect for New York!

We came upon the Carl Fischer publishing building-- that Tara and I (well, mostly our parents) helped pay for as they have purchased numerous Carl Fischer publications for our music library over the years.

It was fun exploring the city through Tara and Trav's eyes. There were lots of fun colored dorm buildings around NYU. I'm sure it makes it a lot easier for students to find their friends buildings. . . I can hear it now. . .

"I'm the yellow one". . .

"Look for the pink brick. . . ya can't miss it!"

Look at what the sun brought out! So many people just sitting around-- no festival or big concert going on. . . just people excited to finally be able to get out and sit in the park!

I work very near Madison Square Garden and I'd wanted to see the Nick's play ever since I'd lived in the city-- I told my colleague Alan, and his son was able to hook us up with some tickets for Tara, Trav and myself-- it actually was an awesome game! Thanks Andy!!!

We were sOoOo excited!

It took us forever to finally leave because there were so many people trying to get down the escalator at the same time. We stood by this sign for a while. . . it was starting to make me thirsty!

Here's the Empire State Building--

I took Tara and Trav to one of my favorite restaurants-- Sook! This is a Tai restaurant-- they loved it!

Another fun place that we went to. . . and a first for all of us. . . was the Stardust Diner. It was awesome! All of the servers are performers-- they told us that lots of them actually end up on Broadway. . . I wasn't surprised, they were stellar performers! It had such a fun atmosphere! We felt like were were sitting on the set of Grease! The food was yummy too;)

Our last day together, we went clear downtown to see the New York Public Library. . . I would have taken pictures. . . but they weren't allowed. We got Soaked! It was pouring rain and soooo windy. . . there were broken umbrella's everywhere! We struggled finding a cab that would save us from the storm and take us where we needed to go, but we finally found one-- and we were ever so grateful!

Tara and Trav safely made it to the airport. . . but due to inclement weather. . . their flight got cancelled! I felt so bad for them. . . haha no, selfishly I was so glad to keep them for a couple more days!

Later that week, I experimented with a few more recipes. . .

Here are some dried edamame's. . .

And egg drop soup! Both were so easy. . . and so yummy!

Pure Country

2010-03-04T22:50:00.000-08:00

I never really had a thing for country music until I went on this date with this kid named Fuzz, and fell asleep on our long drive home listening to him sing it to me-- and now I really do love it-- well, most of it. Fuzz left me with his hard drive last time he was here and I feel like I've got a whole blockbuster in my hand-- it's got so many fun movies on it! I've posted a clip below of one of my new favorite movies, Pure Country, with my new favorite song that I found on his drive. I was telling Fuzz about it and he was like, "Yea I know that song, and I already put it on your Ipod for you like a year or so ago;)" Isn't he the best-- he know's what I like before even I do!

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i4raUtb_iI

Hope you like it. . . kinda hard not to. . . haha ;)

One Year Older . . .

2010-03-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

It happens every year, birthdays. Everyone has them, but some people choose to accept them differently than others. I remember being 15 and telling everyone that I was just about 16 freedom-- haha right? And then 17 was just so close to being 18. . . that much more freedom haha okay, not really. 21 is a special age for lots of people, but because I don't drink it didn't matter so much, the only thing it meant to me was that I was starting to get old. 22 was fine, because for some reason this past year, not too many people have even asked me how old I am--I have had to remind myself of how old I am-- for some reason that's a lot bigger deal for a young single girl in Utah than here in New York.

23-- wow! haha now I feel old. I had planned on being married with a kid maybe even another on the way by the time I hit that number! Obviously, I'm not where I thought I'd be, but I'm grateful for where I am. I think about not having come out here-- and my heart stops. I feel like in more ways than one, I found myself here in New York. I have had such incredible opportunities that I will cherish for the rest of my life. I have met, lived, and worked with some of the greatest people I have ever known. They've all taught me so much. It will definitely be a bittersweet farewell to my New York city adventure come the end of this month, when I leave this place I love. I have learned such valuable life lessons, learned so much about myself, so many things about all the other kinds of people, ways of thinking, religions, cultures etc. I have encountered so many critical situations where I have relied on the power of prayer, the opportunity that I have to so freely express my concerns to my father in Heaven, and been astounded by the overwhelming response's he's given me. I have grown closer to him as I recognize the reality of our communication, and as I continue to include him in my life daily, whether it be a prayer for peace, direction or comfort, and especially my gratitude for all that I'm so undeservingly blessed with.

With all of this said, I am grateful to be 23, and to have had 23 years of learning behind me. I never want to stop. I have a good feeling about this 24th year of my life--- and I'm excited to begin it. haha and whenever I start feeling old, I just think about Fuzz. . . he'll be 26 in a couple weeks! haha just kidding Fuzz--I was just teasing-- really that's not old at all.

My birthday morning started with an amazing breakfast that Lexi made for me-- It was soo good-- and super nice of her! Everyone was so kind at work-- I really am so lucky to work with such neat people! Thank you everyone for your cards and sweet texts-- and fuzz, for your email;) all of you are what helped make my birthday so special!

Last night I met with some of my buddies at the Shake shake-- never been there before of course I conveniently planned that haha so I can check that off as another one of my new restaurants! The food was awesome, but the company was even better-- I was so glad that my friends could stop by on a weeknight, even if it was just for a few min, it was so much fun!

Another Excuse for New Tasty Treats

2010-03-04T21:11:00.001-08:00

Last Friday work was cancelled because of the snow storm we'd had throughout the night. The trains into the city were all shut down and those of us that live on the island were snowed in-- Here's a pic of my front steps, and my neighbors car. . . yea he wasn't goin' anywhere for a while.

Crazy huh?!

Because I had no choice but to stay home, I was so grateful to have another day to work on some fun new recipes, and get things done around the house. . . here are some of my new recipes, I'm just about to my 20 mark that I was aiming for before I leave the city!

This is so simple it shouldn't even count as a new recipe-- but I'm counting it because it is one of my most favorite treats ever! This is just a brown rice cake, with crunchy peanut butter-- better if it's just plain without sugar added, and bananas! It really is sooo good;) Banana's are my new love-- I never really liked them until I moved here, and now I'm addicted!

I've been craving mom's granola lately. . . so I figured I would just make me some myself. . .

Tada! It even tastes yummy too!

This is one of my favorite soups-- and, of course another new recipe for me;) This is Lemon Rosemary, Chicken, and brown rice soup! (This picture really doesn't give it justice- so just use your imagination;)

I love stir fry's but tried a new kind-- Sweet Potato Stir Fry! My work sometimes orders sushi, and when they do-- because I'm weird about any seafood-- I get the sweet potato version of it instead. I didn't even know that kind existed-- but I love it! So I thought I would use that secret ingredient in a stir fry---- so good! My buddy Kendra introduced me to sweet potato fries-- until that time I wanted nothing to do with sweet potatoes, but now I love them! Mom use to fry potatoes to go with our meals sometimes and we'd eat them with Ketchup-- so I tried the same thing with sweet potatoes and they turned out to be delish!

Sunday, Lex and I hosted a group dinner for our ward; It's where whomever wants to participate signs up, we decide what the main course will be, and then give everybody an assignment;) It works out really well when everyone actually follows through with their assignments. As you can see, well at least I hope you can tell, we decided to make Hawaiian Haystacks-- new recipe for me, but something I already knew I'd love! We made this incredible discovery in the process. . . it's called Minute rice. I love brown rice, but it takes about a half an hour to 45 min to cook it-- Minute rice cooks in less than 5 and tastes great!

I made these Zucchini Chocolate Chip cookies for one of our desserts-- I know it sounds kinda weird, but don't judge them to harshly yet. . . you've gotta try them first!

Central Park in Winter

2010-03-04T20:11:00.000-08:00

I got off of the subway a few weeks ago at Columbus Circle to do some grocery shopping, but found myself vering away from the shopping for a sec, drifting towards and eventually wandering into our beautiful park. I was literally mesmerized by it!Isn't it gorgeous?! I told myself I had five minutes to wander around. . . but I just couldn't leave, it was so pretty and there were so many fun things to see!

Here's the Plaza Hotel --- featured in Bride Wars.

Our beautiful skating rink. . .

Bridges everywhere. . .

Chess anyone? It really is a different world inside Central Park-- There is a zoo in there, rock climbing, trails, doggy parks, golfing greens, croquet, tennis quarts, fountains, statues, free entertainment, shows, ponds, boats, restaurants, merry go-around's, a water park, the secret garden, fun races, John Lennon's Strawberry Fields memorial, and the list goes on!

That day especially-- everyone wanted a carriage ride-- the park was filled with them!