Ben

We had a lot of fun with Ben yesterday taking some Senior pics.
All I gotta say is... We had a LOT of fun & Scott is amazing with a camera.
Here are a few of my favorites...
Enjoy

My Mom...

Ever since I was a little girl, I have admired my mother.

I remember all growing up I used to wonder how she was capable of staying up ALL NIGHT LONG cleaning the grout, paying the bills, cleaning the house, folding the laundry, taking care of the animals, etc. Then when morning rolled around, she'd be up by 4:30 (most likely going to sleep around 3:00) with her morning workout finished, breakfast made, hair fixed, cute pj's still on and all the kids gathered around for scriptures before heading off for school. I remember I used to think "Man... I wish I could stay home from school today and go back to bed. Mom is SO lucky that she doesn't have to go to school anymore." Little did I know... Mom was running errands, cleaning the house again, paying more bills, running a preschool, taking care of Ben's needs, running my dad's recording business, taking care of an enormous yard and making it look immaculately beautiful year round, driving my siblings and I to and from our various dance, gymnastics, saxophone, piano, harp, violin, tennis and percussion lessons and about a million other things on top of that. Alright fine, I knew very WELL that my mom was doing all of those things. And it has always amazed me. She is incredible.

How does she do it all? How does she do all of that and STILL find time to tell me stories about her childhood, to teach me how to cook and bake pies, to make me costumes and take me shopping, to teach me how to sew and cross-stitch, to introduce me into the magical world of fairies and to paint pictures in my mind so vivid that I STILL believe we are surrounded by fairies and nymphs, to do art projects with me, to set up the sprinklers so I could run through them with my friends, to help me with lemonade stands, to help me put together and run summer camps and then let me keep all of the proceeds, to come to all of my musicals, choir concerts and plays, to come to my piano, harp, dance and percussion recitals, to always encourage me to be better, to help me with my homework, to help me with my many high school responsibilities, to help me with my many boy dramas, to hold me and love me when I cried, to sit with me night and day when I was in the hospital, to be a spiritual giant in my life, to teach me the power of prayer through example, to teach me the importance of going to church each week, to show me how to take care of Ben and to have faith in me from a very young age that I could take care of him, to be one of the reasons I decided to become a nurse, to support me when I decided to get married, to help me put together the most perfect wedding, to be my school teacher while we lived in Israel, to teach me how to grow a garden, to let me experience the joys of watching baby chicks hatch each spring, to clean my bunny's cage when I "forgot", to feed my bird when I legitimately did forget, to show me how to love, to teach me how to be a wonderful\supportive wife, to help me get jobs, to enroll me in dance classes, to buy me new harp strings when my old ones broke, to teach me how to save my money, to show me the importance of staying out of debt, to always be my biggest fan, to bring me soup when I was sick, to hold my hair back when I was throwing up, to bring our family together each night for family prayer and scriptures each morning, to be my Sunday school teacher for about 3 years, to be the greatest mother any child has ever had. How did she do it? How?

I have thought about this many times throughout my life.. And have hoped and prayed many times that when the time comes for me to be a mother, that I might be like her. Even if I could just be a small bit like her, I feel like my kids will be pretty dang lucky. I sure have had an incredible role-model. And you know what the best part is? She just keeps getting better. I know it seems impossible for someone so close to perfection to actually get better... but... I tell you right now... she is living proof that it is possible.

Of all of my mom's incredible accomplishments, I do believe the greatest one of all, is that there has never been ONE moment/instant/millisecond in my entire life when I have EVER doubted her love for me. And that, my friends, is what makes her so great. Yes, all of the other incredible things were wonderful too.... but she did them because she loves me. She loves me. And I shall never doubt that.

I love you Mom.

Ulcers.

Ulcers.

That's right.

Ulcers.

I feel like I could blame them on many different things... Nursing school, My job and all that went along with it, My other health issues, Weber State University, Being rejected by nursing schools (Weber State) when I was guaranteed a spot, The weeds in the garden that are OVERTAKING our yard, My job, Finding out I'd been driving around for over a year on a voided drivers license (good story), Almost losing our insurance, The mushrooms that are quite literally PUSHING my tulips out of the ground, Having to pay an arm and a leg for our new insurance, A very cracked windshield, SIX cavities, The addition of 6 new chickens to our ever-growing farm family, My job, An engine light that won't turn off in my car, The fear of something scary lurking in my colon, The colonoscopy prep, The actual colonoscopy, Quitting my job, Starting a new one, Flat tires, A broken insulin pump, Being the extreme worrier that I was born being... and so on... and so forth....

But you know what?! Thanks to the good man upstairs... I know that everything is gonna be alright.

In fact, most of those afore mentioned catastrophes have already been "fixed" or nearly forgotten. And I'm sure to everyone out there, those things probably sound totally lame and not bad at all... But let me tell ya... when they all happen at the SAME TIME (or within a couple days/weeks)... it seems a little overwhelming. But... as we all know, when we put our faith in the Lord... He makes it all work out for the best. In fact... Thanks to Him, I was able to quit my last job, which was probably the thing causing my ulcers the most stress. And boy, oh boy... it was SCARY. Mainly because I am the bread winner in our family right now while Scott is in school, and I quit without having ANY other job prospects whatsoever. But, I felt that confirmation and knew that it had to be done. So, I quit my job and was scared out of my mind for about... 36 hours. At which point, I got a phone call from Avalon Hills (a residential eating disorder clinic here in Cache Valley) asking if I could come in the next day for an interview. WHOA. I hadn't even applied there. So.... in I went, and the day after that I had a new job. Crazy how quickly things can fall into place.

I was a little nervous at first about my new job because it is more on the psych side of nursing, which is something I don't have a lot of experience with... but oh my goodness. I LOVE IT. I know this is where I am supposed to be, and I am so grateful for the opportunity. And by that I mean I am so grateful that Heavenly Father got me this job...

Well... Speaking of my new job... Time to go pass out meds and do my nightly checks.

Keep the faith.

All in a day's musings...

Well goodness gracious! It's SNOWING outside! Kind of crazy that we have more snow NOW than we did on Christmas. It's a little depressing to most people.. considering we all thought spring had arrived last week and I went on a lovely walk in nothing more than a light jacket... But oh well.. We all know I am a huge fan of snow and will take it any time of year. There's just something.... refreshingly beautiful about it... the way it blankets everything in white. It can take an otherwise muddy and ugly world and turn it into a clean, white and beautiful wonderland! I also have to mention that I love how snow automatically gets Scott singing Christmas songs around the house, each refrain followed by a "WHY THE HECK AM I SINGING CHRISTMAS SONGS?! We've still got TEN MONTHS to go before that's legal again!!"

In other news... I've decided the world is quickly coming to an end. Yes, that's right. What with the riots in the East, the 6 - 7 point magnitude earthquakes, the tsunamis and hurricanes, Obama Care, and the volcano that erupted in my dream last week (still can't get those images out of my brain).. I feel pretty secure in saying that we are all in for it.

Seriously though... Am I the only person alive who wonders what the world will be like when my kids are teenagers?! The only person who wonders if it's even worth it to sign up for a 401K plan? I DO feel however that I would be well invested to sign up for a life insurance policy. Does that make me a cynic? I often find myself wondering if there will even be a health care system by the time I am 45 and need a kidney transplant. I feel like, as a diabetic, I am pretty much screwed. If we do in fact become a nation with socialized medicine, I sincerely believe it will be the end of all that is good and holy. (Okay maybe not holy). But hey, this is a blog, not a soapbox. And I'm pretty sure no one wants to hear me rant and rave about politics. In fact, I began this blog entry to just talk about the beautiful snow and the fun trip Scott and I took to California a few weeks ago.... So let us move on to happier things...

Scott and I had the FUN opportunity to take a quick trip out to California back in January. We got to spend some fabulous time with his family, which is always a huge treat. We also ventured out into the wilderness and took a 3 mile each way (had to put that out there to make myself sound more awesome) backpacking/snowshoeing trip up to a ski hut in the mountains. Along our journey we came upon David Denman... Who is David Denman, you might ask? Well... he is the dude that plays Roy in "The Office" (one of our very favorite TV shows). Yeah... it was pretty sweet. He talked to us for about 1.38366 minutes. And, alright, so maybe we aren't SURE that's who it was, but we are PRETTY DANG SURE. In fact, we are sure enough that we are just gonna claim that connection to fame. :) Anyway, back to our adventure... it was a lot of fun. Definitely something we want to do again. We were also blessed by Scott's sister Tamra with a beautiful upright piano that now resides in our home. Scott has already learned how to play a few new songs and I feel like it has made our house more into a home. I love it.

Well... this entry has turned into a novel.. Crazy how easy it becomes to just RAMBLE...

Hope you have all enjoyed the transition from the beauty of snow, to the end of the world, how awesome I am for hiking up a mountain through 6 feet of snow and then on to how much I love our new piano.

Happy February!

Oh Snap.

Well... Just showed up at my Mom and Dad's house and upon my arrival found it quite strange that every light in the house was off. I thought about turning around and going home but then decided I might as well come inside for a second and check the weather. (I like to do that so I know if I am going to die on my way to work the next morning or not. You know.... get my life in order and what not.) WELL... sure enough... no one was home. Tennessee was completely OUT and... oh yes... the oven alarm was going off and inside was a very cooked spaghetti squash... one that would have most likely burned to a crisp and could have possibly burned the house down. So... my "Oh snap" moment for the day came when I was able to avert a MAJOR disaster by merely deciding to check the daily weather. :)

The Church is True.

Now go do the right thing.

Winter!

So... I feel like it has been 6 months since my last post... so I figured since I'm sitting here wasting time while I wait for my Cherry bars to come out of the oven, I might as well update you all on life as I know it.

Scott and I have had lots of fun adventures over the past few months... Here are a few that top the list (Or at least a few that I can remember at the current time)...
#1. Scott's parents returned from their mission to Sri Lanka :)
#2. We traveled to CA for Thanksgiving and had fun snowshoeing into the house due to 4 feet of snow.
#3. Bono was diagnosed with Epilepsy but has recently started taking phenobarbital twice a day and is doing wonderfully.
#4. Scott's nephew Tommy was baptized and we were able to make it to Cali for that! We also stopped in Elko, NV on the way and camped in the Ruby Mountains (which I might have mentioned before in a previous blog).
#5. Scott's best friend Alan DeMartini got married in October in San Diego and we got mugged in a McDonalds two hours before our flight home.... Alright, so the dude just stole our food, but holy cow it scared the crap out of us! It was one of those "Did that really just happen?!" moments...
#6. Our cat Persia decided to move out and our sweet chicken Ginger was brutally murdered by a source whom shall remain nameless.
#7. Blue (our bunny) moved in with the chickens for the winter... and seems to be enjoying it.
#8. Scott finished his first semester of Nursing School and is currently on his "winter break"..
#9. My nephew Zack was baptized last week (CAN'T believe he's eight...) and he was about a foot shorter than the other two girls getting baptized that day (SO CUTE).
#10. I'm still working for Access Home Health Care taking care of pediatric patients.
#11. We bought a CAR!!! Never thought I would graduate from SUV's.... but alas, driving 125 miles a day in a truck that gets 12 miles to the gallon just WASN'T practical.
#12. Liv got married. True Story.
#13. Scott and I went to a Guster concert last night that was simply amazing. We bought merchandise.
#14. We spent Christmas with my family this year and had a total blast. Kind of lame that we had more snow on Thanksgiving than we did on Christmas though. We also cut down our Christmas tree again this year which is ALWAYS a fun adventure. :) We also have yet to take it down. Oops. We like Christmas WAY too much. Oh.. and Scott was an Inn Keeper in the annual Israelsen Christmas Pageant. He was FABULOUS. *side note: the dress that he is wearing in the picture is one that belonged to my great, great grandma... She wore it in the 1920's... and I must say... it looks SMASHING on young Nathan.
#15. Scott decided to sleep up Green Canyon in a backpacking tent that I got him for Christmas. It was well below zero that night.
#16. I won tickets to the MOTAB Christmas Concert starring DAVID ARCHULETA! That was simply fabulous. Oh yes.
#17. We joined Netflix. What a wonderful thing. I have recently forced Scott to watch some oldie goldies with me such as "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane" (if you want a good old fashioned intense thriller/horror film, check it out) and "The Birds" (Classic Hitchcock). On the flip side, he has introduced me to films like "Tommy Boy" and "Zoolander". Surprisingly, we both tend to really enjoy each end of the film spectrum.
#18. We are not expecting a child, but thanks for asking.
#19. I'm running out of random things to tell you.
#20. We went to the "This is the place heritage park" for the first time in both our lives and enjoyed it immensely.

Well my friends, my cherry bars are finished cooking (lucky you) so I shall wrap this crazy entry up. .... Yep..... I don't really have anything else to say. So.... Amen?

We got to take pictures of our cute friends Teresa, Tucker and Buffy! Buffy has spunk and Tucker is ruler of the universe. I drug them around in the rain and sleet and had a great time. Thanks T for putting up with my crazy ideas and thanks to Ester for editing all the shots :)