And it Came to Pass...

This is my favorite Christmas Story. Click Here

Craft Blog

I don't craft much myself, but I have a friend that does this amazing crafty-card blog that I wanted to share with those of you who are always looking for ideas.

http://simply-pam.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!!

We've had a lot of people over this month...

Okay, the holidays always bring chaos, but it's time for a re-cap as we wind down the year.

Thanksgiving was a lot of work since I cook it and this year we had it at our new place. Don't go thinking I'm a saint, that's just the only way to guarantee that we get some leftovers. So after two days of cooking and cleaning, we had first Thanksgiving.

Nate cooked the sweet potatoes, the mashed potatoes, and the gravy.

The turkey turned out okay, but last year's was better. We did have the excitement of using our new table and ALL of our dishes. It looked really cute and in the end it was all worth it to have my family hanging out afterwards in the living room relaxing and talking story. I almost cried to see them all so relaxed and content. The next morning we had the girls on my dad's side of the family over for a baby shower. I don't see my cousins nearly enough so it was a special treat to have them all over and they were hilarious.

Second Thanksgiving was at Nate's parents' home right after the baby shower. I was really tired and I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, but once we got there it was so great to see everyone that I was able to pull through for a couple of more hours. The best part was talking to Nate's brother Tom about my race and he told me that I was "off-white." LOL. Find THAT one one the census. And then the next morning was Tom's new baby's blessing. This also involved Nate and I taking a walk around the halls when I started getting restless and I got to meet some Mendon people that I had heard about but never seen.

On Friday the tenth we had some friends over for crepes. They were so good. My husband makes the most amazing crepes. And my friends say the randomest things. It was good to see them all again. I barely make it to any social events anymore, and this one was abbreviated because I also had to write a final paper before midnight that night and I had only started it at one o'clock that morning.

Rich and Shari (Nate's brother and wife) came and stayed over that night, too, and the next day we got the chance to bum around the house talking and watching action movies that were playing on TV. Have you ever noticed how many African-Americans are in The Fugitive? Nate and Rich did. Since they weren't any of the main characters, it seems that they made them all of the extras. This also applies to mustached people in The Negotiator so don't go thinking this was all about race.

Finally, today we had Tyler and Shelli Johnson over for dinner since they so lovingly let us borrow a Christmas tree. I LOVE IT!!! We spent as much money on decorations for it as we could have spent on a tree, but it gave us an excuse to have even more people over and to cook some more great food (like porkchops and stuffing). Besides, Nate completed the pharmacy technician program, passed the PTCB test, and I got all of my assignments turned in on time to move into the next semester of my program. We wanted to celebrate with as many people as possible.

That's the haps, stay tuned for baby countdown the next month. It's going to be fun.

A Cheater's 12 of 12

I've been wanting to do Kristen's 12 of 12 thing for awhile now, but as usual I couldn't follow the rules and these are actually 16 pictures taken yesterday AND today.

(1) Screenshot of Talisha from an interview on consumer habits I volunteered her to do on our lunch break at The District for an assignment I'm working on. (2-4) Nate's brother, Ben, asked me to go visit his companion's family in South Jordan, the Fangupo's. They weren't home, but they had both a Christmas wreath and their Halloween pumpkins out, so I'm pretty positive we were at a Polynesian home. We'll have to try again later. (5-8) I took Nate to Marie Callendar's for the first time in his life we got the scrumptious chicken pot pie and the tri-top steak. Then we ordered a French Apple Pie to take home to share with my grandparent's on Sunday. (9-16) Some images from our new condo. (9) The pile of baby stuff that we have bought or been given so far. (10) My very first mantle ever AND our first pictures we've hung up since we've been married. Note* my flip flop stocking is already hanging up. (11) Some flower pots we got at DI for a dollar each and fake flowers from the dollar store are officially the first attempt I have EVER made at decorating. (12) The IKEA desk that Nate put together that has made me very happy. (13) Nate playing "Knights of the Old Republic in the corner of our downstairs family room. (14) Yet another random find from the depths of Nate's storage boxes, a curled antler he hopes to make into a horn. (14) a cool lantern shade that was left in the laundry room that I am looking to move upstairs. (16) Lastly, HALF of the boxes we still have yet to unpack, most of which are books.

Anxiety cures?

Wow. This time change is really messing with me. While it used to be at this moment I would only have one hour left at work. Instead, I have two. While, I have to admit that I have gotten a lot more done in the morning, I lose focus at the end of the day.

Speaking of days, (or weeks) I only have 10 weeks or so left with this being pregnant thing. Then I'll have a baby. I will have a baby!!!! Yay. Meanwhile, right now I only have this weird anxiety thing. I'm not anxious about anything in particular, it's just general admission anxiety that makes me want to walk around in circles at the office. And sometimes I actually do. HELP ME!!

School Pictures

At work recently, one of the associations I am a part of had us get our headshots taken in case they were needed for any print or online material. I made a joke about how it felt like school picture day, but when I showed up they even had the same background!!! It was hilarious. My mom used to take us to Kiddie Kandids later in the year and we would get the pictures she actually hung up. Aw, memories.

On a side note, I'm glad that they cropped the picture a bit. Otherwise I would have my pregger belly in it. Not that I don't like it, I just don't want to be pregnant for the rest of my career.

Isn't it cute?

WE MOVED!!!

Nate and I are now living in the Holladay portion of Salt Lake City. It's about 2 minutes away from my grandparents' house and it's four times the size of our last place. I'm mostly excited to have somewhere to put the baby AND not have to worry about neighbors living on all sides of us. We have yet to unpack any boxes, but I have to say that my family was extremely impressive in getting us moved all by themselves. Kini and Craig came all the way up from Fremont and spent Friday and Saturday packing up the boxes, and Carl volunteered his truck to move all of our big furniture and using his master Tetris skills, he and dad managed to get all of it to the new place in only two trips. In the rain. On Halloween. It was amazing. And then mom was called in to move our massive Cathode Ray monstrosity. I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am and how guilty I feel that I couldn't help more with the move.

On top of that busy day, my grandparents' had someone come put a hole in one of their windows that night. My brother drove up in the middle of the night and put up some plastic to cover it up. The thing that astounds me, though, is that the next day a group of teenagers came by to apologize and the parents of the kid who did it have offered to fix the window. I still can't believe that they were able to get it all resolved and do it so quickly. It was just an example to me of how a community should work, with everyone taking responsibility for their actions.

Child Care Conference

October is always a crazy month because I head the Utah Child Care Professional Development Conference and that means planning classes, food, vendors, keynotes, registration, and details for almost a thousand child care providers every year. This year had some extra challenges as I had four new committee members that started out late and had to be trained. Luckily, some of them were absolutely fantastic, but some of them gave me more heartburn than my impending baby. But everything came together and things went off with barely a hitch.

Talisha volunteered to teach a class on children's nutrition and she did such an awesome job.

There were almost 70 classes that were offered for providers to attend throughout the day.

This event also marked my last day at CCPDI. It's been a lot of fun, but I am excited to move on to another job. It's still at SLCC, but now I will be the Training Coordinator for the new Smart Grid Technology program that we will start offering next year. It's funded by an ARRA grant that I helped apply for last November. It'll be a wonderful opportunity to add to my educational programming skill set.

Worthy Adversaries

"He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper."--Edmund Burke

I've noticed a running theme in my everyday conversations lately that have addressed a similar theme. The first time I noticed it was in a book group I belong to at work in which we were talking about how we all have encountered someone at work or in our personal lives that seemed to make everything more difficult. One of the women in the group told us that she had learned to think of them as "Worthy Adversaries." They can also be characterized as the people who teach us by being an example of what NOT to do or those that set us up to fail because of their own insecurities.

The most random example of this coming up in conversation was when I was getting my haircut and the woman was telling me of a former supervisor that kept moved her from her position as a manager at a location she had worked very hard to make the number one in the region, to one of the lesser successful locations and then scolded her because her numbers were down from the month before.

I've had my share of worthy adversaries and I think about them frequently. But I have found such strength and inspiration in all these reminders of how everyone has encountered what seems like needless opposition at some point in their lives. And it reminds me that the push against us is never needless. Each of the people, or even situations, that I have encountered that were worthy adversaries were the times I realized or was even told that I should not let myself shrink because someone told, but I should allow myself to be as big as I want so I can come through it knowing I did all that I could. I am grateful for worthy adversaries and admire all of us that utilized the opportunity to learn from them and came closer to our true potential in the process.

Remember 9/11

I was pulling into the parking lot at school when the announcer on the radio came on saying, the second tower of the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. I had no idea what had happened earlier so I listened for a few minutes to see if there was any more information. When I walked into the building, the halls were empty and quiet. I walked into Mr. McOmie's AP Chemistry class and everyone was silently watching the TV. I could see smoke billowing from the buildings. I remember that someone mentioned going to war and I started thinking of my friends that were about to turn 18 and wondering if any of them would end up being involved in it. It was a scary thought. It was a frightening day.

Nate was going to school. His sister was driving and they were listening to a CD. When they picked up her friend and she told them to turn on the radio. They heard that a plane had crashed into the first tower and they weren't sure if it was an accident or a terrorist attack. Then when they were almost to the school they heard that the second plane had hit the other tower. He went inside the school and because it was Tuesday, school didn't start for another hour. He and a friend went into an empty classroom and watched as the first tower fell. In his teenage mind he thought it was pretty cool until he saw the tower collapse and realized how tragic the situation was. The bell for the first class rang and before he had reached his classroom and the teacher turned on the TV, the second tower had collapsed.

For days afterward there were non-stop news reports and in the following months came story after story of the heroes and victims of the 9/11 attacks. One that always stayed with me was the story of two best friends, one Christian and the other Jewish. They both worked in the towers and the Jewish friend was in a wheelchair. When the plane hit the building, they tried to evacuate the building, but the friend in the wheelchair was too big to carry. And so his friend stayed with him. They called their wives and said goodbye. Moments later, the tower collapsed.

All day today we have been trying to remember what was lost and what was gained that day. 3,000 people were killed and countless others affected. To me, the nation was never more united than the months that followed. I am sad to see that it didn't last. But I try to remember what it was like and I hope to share it with my children in the very least that they might understand how quickly the world can change and, even though it will take a long time, there is always an opportunity to heal.

Schrodinger Baby

Well, today we were supposed to find out what we are having, and I'm happy to report it is mostly human. But that's all I have. So in place of the revealing, I am posting a picture of this cute stuffed animal some girl made.


Wish I could knit. This was really off some random blog, but I think her whole owl theme she had going for her baby boy was really cute. I'll probably go with some animal theme, myself. I have yet to narrow it down for sure but my boss gave me a zoo animal car seat/stroller today (Yay for free stuff!) so it may just come to fruition based on what other people give me.

Starting today, Nate and I have taken to calling our baby Schrodinger since it is in such a state of flux between genders while we await our next ultrasound. I think I'm going to start buying stuff for Schrodinger anyway.

Why I Married Nate

I have had a crazy-wavy-topsy-turvy-oopsa-daisy week. But as I was driving today I started pondering on how my life has gotten to this point, and I am glad to say that I can attribute most of my happiness to my husband, Nathan. I know most people want to know how a couple met, their first date, or how he proposed, but I think the real story of the Sokia-Gordon merger lies in the reason why I decided to marry him.

The reason I decided to date him was because of his sense of humor. He was and is still hilarious. But that's how I decided to date every guy I've dated. It was about three weeks into dating him that I really considered that this was something that could go somewhere. One night we were talking on the phone and I randomly asked him if he'd ever thought of names for his children, and to my surprise, he had. We talked about it and within a half an hour we had chosen the name of our first girl if we were to ever have one.

That was only the first of many indicators that Nate not only wanted to be a father, it was his life goal. Everything else he has planned for his life revolves around it and I know that he would be willing to make any sacrifice to be an amazing father. Even when I had my doubts about marrying him leading up to the wedding, they were always overridden by the fact that I wanted him to be the father of my children.

As excited as I am for the birth of my first child, I am even more excited for Nate to finally be a dad. I know that all of us here have a special purpose as parents, but I know that Nate understands and relishes that purpose more deeply and with more reverence than anyone else I have ever known. I am so grateful that he will be my companion in this crazy new adventure.

First Blog About "May Be Baby"

Okay, so I didn't want to update the blog until Nate and I had officially announced that we are PREGNANT!!! That and I was hoping to have a scan of our ultrasound pictures, but that never happened so here is a bad photo of it taken with my cell phone. We are due January 21st and will find out if it is a boy or a girl next month. We've been calling it "May Be Baby" in the meantime.

I am now 16 weeks along. I don't know why the first question people ask when you're pregnant if if you've been sick. How far can that conversation really go? Yes? No? In the morning? Evening? All the time? I was nauseated for the ENTIRE first trimester, had a good week at the beginning of the 2nd trimester that was immediately followed by the upheaval of several organic compounds from my gastric chamber, including (in order of frequency): water, DHA pills, pizza, watermelon, oranges, and apples. I am proud to say I have made it to the proper porcelain receptacles in time for each of these occasions. Although, I think by this time I should have a dedicated stall at work.

To tell you the truth, fatigue has been a lot more bothersome than the sickness. I was not planning on having to sleep all the time when I signed up for my first semester at Westminster, an accounting class at SLCC, planning the child care conference, and advising a student club 3 hours a week. I survived all of it purely by prayer. Now that my energy is coming back, I am a lot less stressed. I count the fact that I made it through the semester a very big miracle in my book. And now onto the next pre-pregnancy adventure, finding a new place to live. Yipes!

By the way, we do have names picked out, but I'm going to wait until we know if we're having a boy or a girl until I reveal it. And, if you're going to guess about anything, let me know if you think it will be brown or white. From what we've seen from others with similar genetic make-up, the first child is brown and the second is white. Either way, they come out adorable!

P.S. How do you like my super cheesy banner? Ha ha ha. I have way too much fun with Photoshop.

One week more...

Nate and I have both watched the cartoon "Avatar: The Last Airbender" within the last couple of days. And by watch the cartoon I mean we watched the entire series of the cartoon. We are now quoting it daily and trying to "bend" the elements whenever we are just walking around. I would like to be an airbender and Nate would like to be a waterbender, but we're almost positive that the roles would be switched. I just wish they had a book series so I can delve even more into the whole thing. The storyline and character developments were quite fascinating and original.

This is the last week of the semester and the last week of complete and utter chaos at my job. Here are some things to look forward to:

Quote board deluxe edition

Semester Wrap-up and Decompressing

Randalls' Farewell (yay!)

Irie's Blessing (Triple yay!)

Cousin Nate's wedding

Chamberlain Family reunion

I know this is almost a waste of a post, but I'm taking a break from homework.

Eclipse Review

This is my official review of eclipse: While I still find the obsessive relationships extremely disturbing, at least they had cool fight scenes and everyone looked better than in the first movie (I didn't see the second one).

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Twilight, I definitely don't hold it against anyone. I see it as equal to my obsession with "The Office." I like overdoses of awkward humor, others like overdoses of vampire romance. I'm cool with that.

I did however go to the midnight screening because I think the midnight screening of anything is cool. And the people that invited me to go are super cool and I never see them so lack of sleep was little sacrifice to see them again. Anyway, the midnight screening was awesome because of the range of fandom that appears. It had "camped out all day and wore matching twilight shirts" group, the "We made our Team Edward/Team Jacob shirts and we're going to hold shouting matches against people with Team Jacob/Team Edward shirts" clan, the "I'm fifteen, dressed like a vamp, and think I'm going to find a really cute guy in this crowd of women who will sweep me away like a spider monkey" trio, and the "We're dressed as wizards cuz we're really here for the Deathly Hallows preview" bunch. As you can imagine, my sarcastic friends and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

And as I said, the movie wasn't that bad.

The Oneder!!

Yesterday was our one-year anniversary!!! This year has been AMAZING. For our first we went to my sister's house in Fremont, UT and went four-wheeling with her in-laws. I know, not your typical first anniversary activity but we wanted to go somewhere and it's always cheapest to go where you can stay with family :) On our way back from Fremont last night we got some frosties and fries and went to Squaw Peak where we saw, for the first time in all my year's going up there, a couple actually making out. Right next to the family visiting from Korea that was taking pictures. HA HA HA!

Anyway, this last year has been stressful and fun. Mostly fun. I've never been as blessed as I am now. Nathan truly is a gift in my life and there is no one else that I would like to share my triumphs and trials with other than him. I've seen him grow so much and even though he was awesome when I married him, I've seen him grow more confident and more able as a patriarch every day. I love you, Nate!

"We are not alone in the Universe..."

(also posted at Our Secret Weapon)

"We are not alone in the universe. God is not the god of only one planet."--Neal A. Maxwell

Last night Nate and I went to see Hubble 3D at our local planetarium. I saw a billboard for it and my inspired friend called me an hour later and asked if we wanted to go. We said yes immediately because Nate is big on astronomy and I just knew he would love it. I had no idea when we went though, that it would turn out to be such a testimony building experience.

The movie follows the launch and subsequent repair missions for the Hubble space telescope. In the 3D format it also took us through the stars and the far reaches of the universe almost as if we were actually flying through it using renditions of Hubble's images. It was the most beautiful thing I have every witnessed. My favorite part was actually flying into the nebula on Orion's belt. once there we looked across the cloud into a canyon where there were baby stars they referred to as "tadpoles." Each of these stars were centered around a major star and encompassed by a shockwave from the fierce winds that surrounded them. The narrator spoke of how some of these stars could grow up and form their own galaxies some day, but the ones that could not withstand the fierce winds would never make it that far.

It's an easy comparison to make.. Each of us, as God's "tadpole" literally have the potential to grow our own galaxies someday if we can withstand the fierce winds of temptation. We will one day walk with Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Universe, and know God as He knows God, as a loving father and friend.

Life at Full Speed

I don't think I already posted this, but my amazing wedding photographers have a new website (http://hiyapapaya.com/blog/) and right now they have Brock and Liliana's wedding pictures posted, so all you PPM peeps can check it out!!!

A side note... I got accepted to Westminster College's Accelerated BBA program!! Ok, so it's not that hard to get in, but I love how this program is set up. You have a project each semester that you complete on your own schedule with the exception of two residency days that you come on campus and work with your project coach. If you complete a project before the end of the semester you can move on to the next one and so it's possible to complete the entire program within a year to 18 months. Plus, I can do it while I work full-time and complete my other classes at SLCC. The program schedule is almost ridiculous. The applications are due tomorrow, the required orientation is next Friday and Saturday (I have to read and be ready to discuss a book called The Three Signs of a Miserable Job by then) and the first residencies are May 22nd and July 10th. Unfortunately, I am going to be in Boston for Neal's wedding on May 22nd so I'll have to make that one up later, but the July 10th one means we will miss out on the Gordon family reunion. I swear Nate's family must think I'm trying to avoid spending time with them. I promise, Gordon clan, I'm just a super super super busy person, even when I was living at home my own family barely saw me for all the time I spent at school and work. So that's kind of a bummer, but it's worth the sacrifice right now to get my Bachelor's because I feel like I'm really old not to have it by now.

Lastly, I am a pretty big fan of GLEE and the episode they had this week had so many good songs I added most of them to my blog playlist. Listen and be fulfilled.

Disneyland in a Day

Last weekend Nate and I took a road trip down to SoCal because I've been really really busy and I was getting stressed. So even though we had little money (which turned to none by the time we got back), and little time, we still went. Who knows how long we'll have to spontaneously impoverish ourselves? We stayed with Keely the Rockstar and her two roommates who were awesome^2.

Keely the Rockstar took us to Disneyland and within a day we rode every ride we wanted to and half of the ones at California Adventure Park. I totally loved the Pirates of the Caribbean with the new Jack Sparrow additions, Peter Pan ride made me feel whimsical, and the Tower of Terror ride is THE. BEST. RIDE. EVER. And the firework show at the end of the day almost made me cry.

Unfortunately when we got there we had forgotten our money in our car and had to borrow some from Keely and realized we left the memory card for our camera in Utah. So we have one picture on our camera's internal memory but no card to upload it to our computer. BUT we did run into my friend Amber while we were there and she took a picture so I have proof we went, hahahahaha! It pays to have a lot of friends that you could randomly run into at times when you don't have a camera at Disneyland.

Also, Sunday was spent on the beach. Every Sunday should be spent on the beach. Why did I come back?

In short, last weekend rocked. As for family updates, Nate was awarded a SLCC scholarship to attend The LeaderShape Institute. It's a national leadership conference that takes place at a mansion in Champaign, Illinois with students all over the United States. I went in 2004 and made some really good friends from Detroit, Boston, Chicago, and Richmond. It also was life-changing experience for me and I learned a lot about myself and what qualities I admire and detest in others. I'm really excited for him to go. As for me, I've submitted my application for the Bachelor's in Business Administration at Westminster College and should be hearing back from them any day now. Cross your fingers!!!

6 Minute Decompression

Six minutes left at work, and what should I do? Write on my blog, of course!!!

My birthday is in about a week but I got my present early. HELLO BAND HERO!!! (It's like rock band but made by the people who did guitar hero. No, seriously, I'm not making that up). Speaking of which, does anyone know what the rules are with parentheses? I'm always confused about when it's actually appropriate to use them instead of for dialogue effect in my writing. Please fee free to educate me. ANYWAY...Band Hero. You know you're a teenager when you buy an entire video game just because they make it possible for you to play the guitar as Taylor Swift. I've been playing it every single day. I'd like to make a shout out to Nate for enabling me to pursue this addiction. ROCK ON!!!

Second of all, work. I'm on a temporary contract so that means that every two years I have to re-apply and re-interview for the job I already have. Don't worry, this happens with all the time at SLCC. Gotta love working for government agencies, lol!!!

Vacation

I wish this blog were to announce an upcoming vacation or show off pictures from one I just returned from, but, alas, it is simply to say that Nate was tempting me to take off right now and go to Vegas for the weekend. I think of my pre-married life when I would already be packed and walking out the car. Instead I am thinking of my meeting tomorrow morning, a wedding to attend on Saturday and a lesson to teach to some 8-year-olds on Sunday. My ex-boyfriend used to call me Sponty (short for spontaneous). And then the mission happened and planning got implanted in my brain and now I'm only spontaneous when I can plan to be. LAME SAUCE.

Speaking of planned spontaneity...




It's Festival of Colors time again!!! I almost wish I could skip this weekend and go to March 27th. I LOVE the Festival of Colors. The picture above is from the first time I went in 2008. This is a picture from last year:
What better way to celebrate the coming of Spring than by throwing colored powders at each other in a large, chaotic mess? I wouldn't miss this for the world. The night before we're also going to my first Indian American Pow-Wow. So hopefully we'll have all sorts of fun stories to tell. Okay, so maybe planned spontaneity isn't so bad. And you know what, there's plenty of fun stuff to do around here anyway.

It's a Monday!!!

I came in to work today to discover a computer that has viruses and a phone that does not work. So, while I am waiting for scans and tests to be done to cure both, I decided that it's about time that I updated.

Nate and I are plugging away at school right now. Nate loves his pharmacy tech classes and he's a lot happier than he was last semester when I threw him into biology and college algebra. I told him to enjoy it because he still has a whole bunch of harder classes and he's going to have to start taking all of them at the same time since he's run out of "cake" classes. I'm currently doing photoshop, public speaking, business computers and business stats. Fun stuff, right?

Nate's brother is leaving for the MTC on Wednesday so there was a huge family get-together this weekend that involved a lot of good food and many funny stories. Nate's sobrinos like to gang up on him and beat him silly and, while entertaining, he doesn't seem to enjoy for extended periods of time. During one of these attacks, I stepped in and said, "Hey! You better leave my husband alone or you'll have to answer to me."
" I'll fight you!" said Travis
" I'll fight you!" said Ali
" Let's play house!" said Katie. I responded by laughing hysterically and sent them to play house. I swear, you could have seen the halo on Katie's head.

Ben gave a really awesome farewell talk. As soon as he introduced his topic, "How My Family Affected My Decision to Serve a Mission" he started crying. He then looked at his watch and said, "We're not even a minute in." And then he started to read a scripture and couldn't see through his teary contacts, so he ended up taking one of them out and laying on the podium while saying, "We'll just save that for later." Before everyone left we got to impart our words of wisdom to the soon-to-be missionary. I shared that the most important thing I learned on my mission was that dropping was an act of faith. Every missionary meets people that they really love and want to visit and teach forever because they are our friends, but then they don't keep commitments and don't progress, you have to leave them for another missionary to find and find someone who has already been prepared for you to find. And I told him later on that the same rule applies to people you date when you come home ;)

Other than that, Nate and I are trying to move forward. We got our bills back from the hospital from last month's "activities" and I have to say that I am so blessed to have the job that I have and the insurance that comes with it. Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield has been wonderful to work with and they always answer my questions when I call. Having had horrible health insurance in the past, I truly appreciate all that they do.

Anyways, that's the latest. When I finally do a post from home I'll have to show you guys the masks Nate and I made PLUS all the other double date pics I promised from December.

I Love Photographers!!!!

I saw this on my friend, Natalie Von Elm's, fabulous facebook page and thought I would spread the word. This local photographer, Tiffany Anderson, is having a photo session giveaway and since I know some of you have not had new family photos taken since you had your wedding, I would encourage you all to participate. She has a fun and unique style that you would look AWESOME in. Check it out now!!

Details on the giveaway...

Board-worthy addendum

"Self-cannibalism makes sense. You get more nutrients and there's less of you to nutrientize."--Nate

Board-worthy

I have been found board-worthy by my fellow colleagues in the Marketing Department of Miller Campus!!! They have a white board in their office on which they write funny quotes that people happen to say or e-mail them. Well, now they have decided to go digital and yesterday I made the blog version of said board. Check it out here. I have to say, we have a lot of fun.

Nate and I have our own quotey white board which is beginning to fill up and will have to be erased soon and I figured this was a nice time to transfer some of those quotes to a digital platform, also. Drum-roll please....

"Vegas street corners: Pick up your hooker and pay your homeless guy."--Nate

"Vampirate!!"--Nate

"You're a druggard."--Ashley

"For our 7/8/09 party we can dress up as vampires and call ourselves, 'The Counts.'"--Ashley to a Mountain America loan officer

"It was a four-legged devil pig that hated me."--Nate's dad

"You're poking my earball." --Nate

"Hey! It could be filled with chocolate, okay?"--Muppets in Space

"It was destroying astrophotos left and right!!!" --Some kid at a Stansbury Park telescope

"And I'm even carrying the dead guy!"--Tyler
"You made him the dead guy."--Nate

"Do you know that lady's last name? I think I prosecuted her son last week."--Nate's brother, Jake

"Fire rained out of the sky last night. That's never a good thing. And a demon crawled out the place where you were born."--Quote heard on the show "Angel" at 4 am.

You can tell we have a lot of fun, right?

A Serious Post

I haven't really made this public, but I really want to share the experiences that Nate and I have been having lately and what I've gained from it.

At the beginning of December Nate and I found out that we were pregnant and we were so excited. A couple of weeks ago, we found out that we no longer are and as much joy as we felt before, that was the amount and disappointment and pain we felt after. It didn't help that they had to give me some medication that my body didn't like and I ended up in the Emergency Room for an evening. It was a very tough week for Nate and I. Probably the toughest that I have ever had.

BUT with all the hardships that we've had lately, I've never appreciated Nate more. He spent every free minute he had worrying about me and doing things to make me more comfortable. It seems weird to say now, but I'm so grateful that it all happened because it is the first time I've had a really really hard trial and had someone right there going through it also. It has made marriage so much more amazing for me. It's always been awesome, but now that I know what it's like to have a shared life-changing experience with someone and I couldn't be more grateful to have Nate be that someone.

We had Nate's sister-in-law and her friend come stay with us for the last two days. At one point the friend told us that she when she got married, she wanted a marriage like mine and Nate's. You know what my thought was? I do, too!

2010

The holidays were absolutely wonderful!!! And packed with activities that obviously did not involve updating my blog (woops!).

December was the month of Double Dates. (Pictures to come). First, we doubled with my friend Shannon and her boyfriend-ish-erson, Nate. We went to Winger's, which is always awesome, and then we came back to our apartment and made sugar cookies and frosted them with Christmas themes. My favorite was when Shannon tried to put buttons on her snowman but it turned into a big red splotch, so she added some red to the ground and then Nate frosted a Santa Claus with a gun pointed at the snowman and we created a morbid Christmas scene.

Our second excursion was down to Provo to hang out with my bestest friend since 3rd grade and her husband, aka. Colleen and Derek. It was nice to escape the Salt Lake snowstorms and cross the mountain into non-standstill traffic. We started out at Wal-Mart where we picked out some ice cream and showed off our favorite gangsta rap dance moves. We then went to Colleen and Derek's place to make ice cream sculptures. C&D made a tranformative piece that started out as a Christmas tree and slowly morphed into a volcano until it ended up in Derek's Tummy that I'm sure turned into ice cream hangover and regret. Nate and I went a more non-holiday route and did Darth Vader. It pretty much rocked. This led to the watching of Star Wars dance-offs on YouTube and mucho laughter and inside jokes. To cap off the night, we played a little anagrams with one of C&D's presents and ended up taking the work FAMILY into all sorts of realms of hilarity.

A couple of days later Nate and I traipsed to Chinese Food and Temple Square with Jake and Kristen, some friends from our mission. The food at Wok King was amazing and this cute little girl was our little hostess. Temple Square was fun since I didn't get to see it last year. They added a Nativity to the middle of the reflective pool and bubble lights and they moved the international nativities to a more visible area. I always have a million memories of high school flood back to me whenever I go to see the lights because we practically lived down there in the winter when we had nothing to do. After the lights we all came back to mine and Nate's place and had hot chocolate and good conversation. Jake and Kristen always make me feel like an adult and that's not an easy task.

We spent the holidays with family and our new Wii we got from Santa. I gave Nate's brother, Jake, a Red Ryder BB Gun that was the envy of all the brothers. He's lucky that he even got it because Nate and I really wanted to keep it for ourselves. AND Nate received Brian Regan's last two DVD's and now we can't stop quoting him or talking like him.

New Year's Eve was ever-exciting as Nate and I stayed home and played some board games we got from our wedding. FYI, I still don't have the attention span to play Monopoly even after 13 years. It was cool to watch the Sigourney Weave marathon that was apparently on TV (Alien, Aliens, and Galaxy Quest) since we had just seen her in AVATAR in 3D, which is a beautiful movie, by the by. New Year's Day we went down to Nate's oldest sister's house and played RockBand and Wii Fit with their family. I'm really glad we can't afford either of those because I'm already addicted to Wii Sports and it's not nearly as cool.

And finally, this weekend I hung out with Nate's sister-in-law (or my sister-in-law once removed?), Heidi, at Color Me Mine in Ogden. I don't have my piece back yet, but I'm amazing so just picture an amazing bowl. I had a blast. I don't know their family very well because they lived in Nebraska the whole time Nate and I were dating. The time I have spent with them, Heidi has been hilarious and I thought I should get some more of that. Plus, she bought me some Farr ice cream and we walked around Ogden's Christmas Village. At one point, there was a woman who stopped and asked me what my shirt said (it said, "I am my own hero.") and she started laughing and yelled out that I was beautiful...she appeared to been under the influence of some sort of drugs or alcohol at the time, but that just made the whole thing even funnier.

And yesterday, I became the incubator for a fully blown head cold that has made it almost impossible to sleep or breathe. I've had to resort to sleeping on the couch in an upright position to keep my sinuses under control. And that's my life right now. As soon as I find our memory card adaptor I'll post pics of all these fun adventures. In the meantime, I hope you all feel better than I do right now. I'm going to go collapse.