Odds and Ends

Its been nearly two months since I've written. I think there a lot of reasons for missing on writing.

• Not really happy living here- so its hard to write.
• Busy- well kind of not always 
• Feeling like there isn't anything to write about. 

I have tried to be happy, I really have. I am happy just not about living in Boise. It doesn't feel like home. I don't see us being here long term so its hard to be fully invested ™.  I miss my friends a lot. I wasn't one to see friends or talk to friends everyday but I miss knowing that I can go to lunch or dinner with Robin or Rachelle. I miss going to Alyssa's house for playdates and marathon talking sessions.  I miss my hot chick nights with Bridget and Robin.  I miss walking to Days and ALWAYS seeing someone from my ward. I miss my Edgemont ward and neighborhood so much. I loved going to church and having so many friends.  

Okay that is enough of what I miss. Lets get onto what's been going on.

• Last week we attended our THIRD ward in the FOUR months that we have been here.  When we first came to Boise we were faced with the decision of attending the ward that our apartment belongs to or just go to the ward where we are building our house.  I opted for the apartment ward, Lou wanted the house ward. I was wrong. We went to the apartment ward for a few Sundays, we knew it wasn't where we we were suppose to be.We started to attend our ward within our house boundaries. We both felt at home.  Last week we found out that our Stake was changing ward boundaries and we would be attending a new ward once again. We went this past Sunday to our new ward. It seems nice enough, its quite large,(apparently it was very small before the changes) it was really loud during Sacrament meeting but maybe that was just the excitement of changes.  Lou and I were lucky enough to talk in our ward the last week we attended. It was funny it was like a welcome talk and a farewell talk (even though we didn't find out until that night that we would be part of the ward that was changing) .  Its so funny when we were looking at houses one of the reasons I wanted Southeast Boise and not a growing place like Meridian is because I didn't want changes in our ward!! Silly me.

• The kids have had this entire week off. I LOVE it. In Utah they always just had the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Friday after Thanksgiving off. Its been so fun to get ready for Thanksgiving and have the kids around.  

• Speaking of Thanksgiving. We will be spending Thanksgiving in Boise this year. It will be the first year I'll make the meal. I am so so excited. We'll miss Lou's family but it will be so fun to be just us too.  I have been planning for a few weeks the menu and the day. I have some fun ideas, that I'm really excited about it. We'll have turkey (I found a copycat recipe for the Honeybaked Ham turkey recipe... that we love) , ham, homemade Lionhouse rolls, mashed potatoes,  green bean casserole, stuffing (lou and josh like it, me and kira don't), stuffed mushrooms, a cranberry- apple pie relish, salad and of course pie.  I bought my family's traditional snacking food to eat throughout the day too.

Beautiful flowers Leann and Jeff sent me for Thanksgiving, saying they are going to miss us but wishing us luck :)

• We are starting a new tradition on Thanksgiving.  After dinner and pie we'll open our Christmas season box.  I thought it would be fun to put a box together to welcome us to the Christmas season.  I bought a few Christmas movies, books and candies to put in the box.  I am sooo excited about his box, like beyond excited. I think the kids will love it.  It will be fun to think of new things to do every year with it. I almost bought Christmas shirts for the kids to put in but the movies and books were adding up :)

• So I was going to take a mediation class this fall. I was pretty excited about it. But as I looked more and more into the training. Every training class is held on Sundays. You have to take quite a few courses before you are certified. I didn't feel right about that at all. So I won't be doing the mediation training anymore.

• Our house is delayed again but that's okay. We need things to be done right, there were a few major things that the inspector and Lou didn't like when we had the inspection. So hopefully CBH will agree to fix those things, the way we want them fixed.

That's our update for now.  Hopefully I'll write more than every two months!!

A Visitor in Your Own Town

Thursday was an absolute fabulous day!  Rachelle had the brilliant idea of going to City Creek over Spring Break so we did.  We planned on just a few hours but ended up being gone all. day. long.

We left Provo around 11 am and didn't return until after 9:00 p.m.  The kids were so good for the long day. We hit a little traffic on the way up to Salt Lake but I didn't mind, I loved talking with Rachelle.

We did a ton of walking around, we had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. We did some more walking around and looking around, we got shakes from Godiva. We did some more walking around, we bought a little souvenir for the kids from Papyrus Papers. I got the kids scented pens, Rachelle got Daniel the biggest turtle eraser you'll ever find.

Daniel had swimming lessons but Rachelle decided we were having too much fun so we kept on going instead of going home. We went to Temple Square. I haven't walked around Temple Square in a long time.  I mean we go at Christmas but then we're just looking at lights we don't go into the Visitors Center and stuff. We decided to do it all. We went to the Christus. It was so peaceful. Kira observed as we were walking up to the Christus that the rail was like the Iron Rod leading us to Heaven.  We enjoyed a presentation on families. I felt the Spirit so strongly. It made me miss Louis a lot. It solidified many feelings lately I have been having about the importance of marriage, eternal marriage.  Our kids were so attentive during the presentation. The presentation was a video about a family. You walked into different rooms for different parts of the video, following the timeline of the family's life. It was good. Kira said that she wants a copy of the Proclamation in her room.

After Temple Square we went over to the Conference Center. I had never taken an official tour of the Conference Center, it was nice. We started on the roof. The kids loved looking at the city. My kids of course were very excited to point out the ESA.  We were able to go to the auditorium where General Conference takes place.  Earlier we were at the Tabernacle, it seemed so small, its hard to imagine that is where General Conference was held for so many years, and immediately seeing the Conference Center you can see how visionary the Church is.  The kids liked the auditorium though disappointed we weren't able to go to the podium.  We saw paintings of the Book of Mormon, we went through the Hall of the Presidents.  I looked looking at the paintings with the kids in the Conference Center and the Visitors Center. I loved hearing which one were the kids favorites. Josh loved the painting of Christ on the cross. Josh told me how much he loved Jesus and the atonement. Kira loved the painting of Christ visiting the Nephites, she says its her favorite scripture story.  My favorite was Christ coming into Jerusalem on the donkey and the one of the baptisms at the Waters of Mormon.

There were a few other people on our tour one of them was a RM who served in France, Kira and Josh spoke some French with him, it was cute.  The tour guide loved Kira, he told her she was smart enough to give the tours. She responded with an exited "really!" "can I mom, please!" It was cute.

We then walked back to City Creek. We had dinner at the Blue Lemon.  Oh earlier in the day I accidentally put down my bag with my leftovers and the kids pens. I noticed when we were at the Visitors Center. We didn't make it back to City Creek till hours later. I found it! Josh told me earlier when we first realized I didn't have it to say a prayer. I did. It was nice to find it and see Josh got excited about a prayer being answered :)

We walked around some more, the kids enjoyed the fountains, we enjoyed the fountain shows.  We finally decided to leave around 8:00 pm.

It was such a fun fun day. I loved talking to Rachelle, seeing the kids having fun and enjoying time with the kids.  It was fun to be a visitor in my hometown.

Spring Break 2013!

Spring Break! 

Kira and Josh are home this week and I couldn't be happier.  Feelings that time flies by too quickly have dominated my heart the last several months, having the children home seems to help slow time even a minute or two.

We have enjoyed the rainy, cool, cloudy weather the last two days.  Yesterday we didn't do anything besides enjoy each other's company in the house. The kids created their own town with their Fisher Price Little People, My Little Ponies, Winnie the Pooh figures and Mickey Mouse figures. It took up my living room which should cause this neat freak anxiety but it didn't. Kira had it so organized and they had so much fun and displayed creativity that my usual anxiety didn't occur.

Today we were able to have Daniel over for a few hours. The boys mostly played Minecraft while Kira read and played with Daniel's fun eraser collection.  Rachelle joined us after her class.  We enjoyed chatting while the kids ate their pancake lunch and played some more. After we all went to Blickenstaffs, it was fun to get out of the house.

Tomorrow I think we'll go to the library and then meet up with Robin.  Thursday we'll go up to City Creek with Rachelle and Daniel and Friday well I don't know just yet.

Spring Break

Togetherness

We get to see Lou in a few days. That's all I can really think about! This is the longest we have been apart our entire marriage.  Its hard knowing he'll be home for such a short period of time before he goes back to Boise.  We will sure make the most of and enjoy the days we do get with him.

Saturday will be me and Lou's 11th anniversary. 11 years is a long time but it is really hard to remember what life was like before I married Lou.  In 11 years Josh will be 18.  That is weird to think about, that in the same amount of time that we've been married, all my kids will be adults.

Today I went visiting teaching. I sure love my companion and the sisters we visit teach. It has been such a blessing in my life.  I love that the sisters we visit like to be visited and make it so easy for us to visit.  I like that my companion is the same way.  I have visited the same sisters for the two years we've been in the ward.  We are all in different stages of life, my companion about the same age as me has three young kids at home none in school yet.  One of the sisters we visit teach has three kids ages 12-18.  The other sister we visit has two kids, both returned missionaries attending BYU.  I enjoy talking with these sisters, I like that I am able to learn from their life experiences. Having friends that are not your age and not in the same circumstances as you is a great experience.

I have felt so much love from my friends this week. Robin came over Saturday night, we watched Felicity.  Rachelle has called and texted. Alyssa invited us to spend Saturday afternoon at her house and we ended up having dinner together.  I have such good friends. I don't know if I have ever had as good of friends as I do right now on a whole.  (there it is getting so comfortable with how life is that Heavenly Father makes you pack up and start over again)



I also have been talking to my mom much more frequently on the phone, same with my sister Sharon. Talking with family although they live across the country is so nice. Although it would be much nicer to see them every week, talking will have to do.

Friends and Painting

Its funny just last night I thought, I need to be a better friend. I need to have that daily interaction with friends. We have been anything but social since moving (gasp nearly two years ago) especially with remodeling our house. We never have people over because of everything that comes with a remodel, I work nights and the weekends (friday and saturday) when we'd have friends over.  In our old ward we were really social had lots of family friends. I don't know why we aren't here. I still have my friends, who I see and love but I don't even see them as much as I would like
Anyways after having a little pitty party in my head yesterday today I got reminded that friends are great. I got texts from Rachelle and Alyssa called saying hey can I drop something by

When Alyssa dropped by she said she had cut the Lowes coupons and thought of us since that is where all our money goes. She however felt silly just dropping by coupons so she made us bread, she also had lots of lettuce from her garden so she shared that with us too.

Thank goodness for great friends like Alyssa who reminds me I do have friends. 

The kids are so cute today painting outside

Kira helping Josh finish his canvas

josh working on his canvas

Kira earlier was playing on a broom stick you know like Harry Potter

excuse the last picture I didn't want to go outside and have her see me so you get it through our screen. Excuse the dirt on the window seal, I just removed a potted plant and hadn't cleaned under it yet.  excuse the ugly paint lou hasn't gotten to the kitchen yet.

Four Square

Rachelle tagged me I think its fun. I haven't done a tag post in a LONG long long time. So here it goes :)


Four Places I Go

1. Church-  every Sunday. I guess it comes to mind since today is Sunday.  I love our ward its nice to be in a regular family ward again.

2.  Barnes and Noble- I LOVE walking around the bookstore.  Whether it be with Robin or by myself during the day just sitting and reading I love it! Lou and I have often gone there for date night.

3.  Edgemont Elementary- I used to walk the kids to and from school everyday and then it got cold and the kids like walking with their friends.  Now that its getting warm I'll probably walk to pick them up.

4. Library- I love the Provo Library. sometimes I go there just when I have nothing else to do during the day 


Four Smells I Love-hard to do I usually think of smells I don't like

1.  Airwick Apple Cinnamon plugins- I know its more of a Fall type smell but I love the smell and usually have it in my house at most times.

2. Clean house- everyone knows I like things clean, on Mondays I do my deep cleaning.  I love the smell of the house after that cleaning is done.

3.  Sweet Pea lotion from Bath and Body Works

4. homemade bread or homemade pizza- very close so its a tie.

Four Favorite TV Shows

1.  Gilmore Girls- I love this show. I discovered it on ABC Family when Kira was a baby and I was home all the time.  I now own all the seasons on DVD.  I just love the banter, the characters, the storylines, everything.

2. Friends- was the first show that Lou and I started to watch together. I can watch it countless times and always laugh.

3. Lost- no explanation needed!

4.  NBC Thursday Night shows- for awhile it was the Office, then 30 Rock and now Parks and Rec.


Four Recommendations

1.  journal writing- I love reading past journals. I need to start being more consistent again.

2.   a little exercise every day- whether its a walk, a little yoga before bed I find I am much happier even with just a little exercise.

3. smile

4. do something for you everday

I think those recommendations are WAY more for me!

I had fun doing this so I recommend it to anyone and everyone :)