I'm Back...

Wow, where did three months go?  I can't believe it has been that long since I blogged! I was telling my sister-in-law Stace that I was finally going to blog today and would be including the birth of her baby (three months ago) and she said I could say, "This is Savannah and now she is in college..." (Ha, Ha, Stace, you are funny!) That is about how it feels though!

I don't have any REALLY good excuse for not blogging. I guess the best one is that so much has happened in the last three months that it was a little overwhelming to think about trying to blog about it. So, I will put the highlights, and hopefully you won't get bored!

JULY

July was a packed month but so much fun! The week of July 11-17 I went to the Oregon coast with my parents and my brother Dave and his family. It was really fun. About ten years ago we went on a sisters trip to the Oregon Coast and loved it so much that I have been back four times now. It is so peaceful and beautiful!

My sister-in-law Melissa, who is amazing at finding deals on the internet, had found a great rental house that was a three minute walk to the beach with a gorgeous view of the ocean. We spent a lot of time at the beach, built sandcastles and had a treasure hunt with the kids, went on a boat trip, went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, went to lighthouses and watched sunsets. My favorite part was being with family and walking on the beach.

Here are a few pictures:

Jen and I on the windy beach. Look at the beautiful waves!

My Dad at the Yaquina Bay lighthouse. I like the smile on his face--we don't often get candid pictures like this of my Dad. Don't you love the combination of green trees and ocean behind him? I love Oregon!

My Mother in our beach house.  You can see the big windows behind her that had a beautiful view of the ocean. I think she looks really pretty in this picture!

Cape Foulweather--one of my favorite places on the Oregon coast! It is up on a promontory overlooking the ocean and had a cute little gift shop. This is the view looking north. So breathtaking!

This is Dave and Mel and their cute kids at Cape Foulweather. What a sweet family! We had so much fun with them.

This is kind of overexposed, but I thought it was cute with me and Mieka. This was waiting to get on the boat.

On the beach with Annika. I loved walking on the beach!

I couldn't resist a sunset picture, since I am "enamored with sunsets!"  This was a beautiful night! It was really cold, but worth the cold to see the sunset progress.

I got back from Oregon and was back for two days before I left for girls camp.  On one of those days (July 19th) my sister-in-law Stace had her fifth (and unplanned) baby Savannah. She is such a cute baby. Like I said before, she is 3 months old now, but here are a few pictures of her birth:

Holding Savannah--isn't she a pretty baby?

You can't really see Savannah's face, but I thought this was a cute picture with me, Jen and Stace. Doesn't Stace look good for just having a baby?

I left for girls camp the next day and was there July 20-23. Camp was really fun, but I won't spend a lot of time writing about it since I still have a lot to write.

My favorite part was our sunrise hike. We decided to raise a flag of virtue as Sister Dalton, the General Young Women's President, has suggested. We hiked up to a beautiful lake and I was assigned to give a talk on our theme, "Daughters of a King" and virtue. It was a challenge and I prayed a lot, but it went really well and the spirit was strong. I actually got a sweet note later from one of the girls that said it had really helped her. I love the blessings we get from fulfilling our callings! Here are a few pictures from the hike:

The sun just coming up and hitting the mountains--it was so peaceful and beautiful!

This is Rachelle Bolingbroke, my good friend and the Stake YW President, and I on the hike with the virtue flag. After my devotional all of the YW and leaders signed the flag as a commitment to return to virtue. It was a really special experience!

On July 31, my niece Kate was baptised. It was such a neat day. Kate is such a sweet and good girl. She is so helpful to her Mom and sisters. She had asked me to give a talk on the Holy Ghost and it was nice to have time to reflect on how grateful I am for that precious gift. Here are a few pictures:

Janelle, Kate and my brother Mike.

Jen and I with Kate. Such a sweet girl!

Kate and I at the luncheon afterwards.

AUGUST

August was not nearly as busy as July, other than my normal day to day things. In fact, I only have a few pictures:

Another sunset... I know; but this was so beautiful I had to put it in. This is a picture I took at a YW activity on August 18. Even though I am in the Stake YW, I go to weekly activities because our Stake is small enough that we combine. So, every Wednesday night I have YW. I have enjoyed it a lot, especially getting to know the YW. It does make my week busy with YW on Wednesday and the temple on Thursday, but it is worth it!

On August 20, I went to Lagoon with my sister's family and another niece. It was a fun day. I just love summer activities! I will only put one picture, one I took of myself with my two nieces, Annika and Emma. I just love that I have all these wonderful nieces and nephews that love me so much. What a blessing!

This next picture is from our family birthday party on August 22. Our family gets together every month for birthdays and I thought this was a cute picture of the kids on the balcony at my parents house:



SEPTEMBER

On September 16 I had another little niece born. My sister Emilee had her third baby and named her Isabella. Here are a few pictures:

Emma and I holding Bella. You can't see Bella much, but I liked the picture.

There is a picture of Bella, such a sweet girl!

This next picture is me with some of my nieces and nephews at my parents house on September 19. We had gone over to my parents because my sister-in-law Janelle had found out she had an abdominal tumor that the doctors were suspecting could be cancerous, so she was getting a blessing from my Dad. The blessing was very comforting--I am so grateful for the Priesthood--and during the blessing my nephew Joey and two of my nieces came and snuggled next to me.  How can I even feel bad about not having my own kids when I have so many wonderful nieces and nephews?

  

The weekend of September 25-26, Saturday and Sunday, Jen and I watched Mike and Janelle's kids while Janelle was in the hospital recovering from her tumor removal. (We found out later that it wasn't cancerous. It really was a miracle--even when they took it out they were sure it was cancerous--it wasn't until we got the path report back that we knew for sure. We are all so grateful!) Even though we were worried about Janelle, we had a great time with the kids. We took the kids to a movie and had a sleepover. They really wanted to have their cousins come along, so Emma and Matthew are in the pictures as well:

In the car on the way to the movie. We were singing songs and having a great time!

The girls at our house for the sleepover. So cute!



OCTOBER

Really, if you have made it this far in my post I am proud of you. It is really far to long. I should have not tried to catch up, but when I started looking through pictures I found so many cute ones. Actually, you should feel lucky, I left quite a few out! :)

The last thing I wanted to write about is Conference. I loved Conference this year! The weather was perfect, the speakers were amazing as usual, and overall it was a great experience.

On Saturday morning Jen and I took Logan and Kate, our two newest 8 year olds (well actually, Logan was not quite 8, in fact, his birthday is today...) to the Conference Center to see Conference. They slept over the night before and then we drove up early to get good seats. They were so good and we had a great time. Here are a few pictures:

Kate and Logan at our house before we left in the morning. Don't they look so nice all dressed up?  And, I just have to mention that I tied his tie...we didn't realize he would have an actual tie until that morning, so I got on the internet and found instructions.  Looks pretty good for a novice, doesn't it?

Me with Logan and Kate before Conference--perfect weather!

Logan and Kate in front of the fountain. Notice they are holding their Conference packets.

Jen made these great little packets with pictures of the General Authorities and other activities to keep them occupied. We got there at 8:30 to get good seats, so they ended up sitting up for 3 1/2 hours, but they had a lot of fun before Conference and were very reverent during Conference. 

The highlight before Conference was seeing all of the General Authorities walk in. Our seats are close to where they all walk in and Kate and Logan were so excited to mark them off in their packet as they saw them. Sister Wixom, the new General Primary President, came up and shook their hands and asked them their names. About ten minutes later, she came back and introduced them to her counselor and remembered their names! Later in that session she gave a talk about ministering one by one. I thought she was a great example of that.  They also got to shake hands with President Samuelson (a member of the Seventy and president of BYU), Sister Dalton, (the General YW President), and Larry Gibbons, (a member of the General Young Men's Presidency).  It was so neat for them to get individual attention from some of our leaders. 

After Conference, as the General Authorities were all walking out, Sister Perry saw them and nudged Elder Perry and they both looked over and waved at them. That was really fun for them.

 Overall we had such a great time! What a blessing to be able to take these kids up to Conference and to help them understand the blessings of having Prophets and Apostles and the importance of Conference. Here are a few more pictures (including a picture of all of us at The Roof restuarant, where we took them for lunch afterwards):

 Congratulations! You have reached the end of my post! I hope it wasn't too long and boring...

Other than all of these fun activities, life is the about the same. I am still working at the hospital and loving my job and still working at the temple and serving as a Coordinator on Thursdays and loving it. As I have written this post this morning I have been struck over and over with how blessed I am! I really do have a wonderful life.

A Few of My Favorite Things...

I have not posted much lately, mainly because I have had a great spring/summer with lots of fun activities. I thought I would post a few of my favorite things that I have done or seen in the last six weeks or so:

This is a picture of the beautiful spring flowers as I walked into the Timpanogos Temple on May 20th. I always think the spring flowers are the most beautiful!

 

 

These pictures are from a visit to Temple Square on May 22nd.  Jen and I went with our brother Mike and his family and had a great time. His family is in the first picture and the second picture is me with my sweet niece Kate. I was holding the camera and taking the picture, so it is a little close, but I love how Kate has her head against my shoulder. The last picture is Jen and I with the three girls.

Later that night we had a 30th birthday party for my brother-in-law Steve. We have a fun tradition of having a big party complete with pianta and games for 30th birthdays.

The top picture is of the kids waiting to do the pinata (look at their cute excited faces) and the second picture is of my sister-in-law Karla and Steve (the birthday boy) using the remnants of the pinata as hats. It was really cold that day, so we did the rest of the games inside, but we had a lot of fun that night.

 

This picture is from our Memorial Day BBQ/Family Birthday party on May 31st. I thought this was such a cute picture of the cousins having fun together.

These two pictures are from June 4th. I went to the Provo Temple one day and as I walked out, I was struck by how beautiful the day was!

The first picture is looking over the valley from the entrance of the temple and the second picture is looking back at Rock Canyon as I drove away. I used to work in that area and drive to Rock Canyon during lunch sometimes. I have always thought it was very beautiful and peaceful. I especially love the clouds!

This picture is from June 5th. I went to my parents house to help them plant some trees and flowers. My brother and his wife live in the basement apartment and his kids came out to help. It was so sweet! They carried things for us, helped us dig the holes etc. This picture is of me watering the flowers with Brianna and Josh after we planted the flowers together. They were so excited to help.

I just had to add this picture because it was so cool. We went to fly kites for FHE on June 7th and the clouds were amazing! This looked almost like a funnel cloud was starting to form! It was the perfect night for kite flying with lots of wind.

This picture was taken on June 12th at Stake Youth Conference.  We spent months planning it with the Stake Young Men's Presidency, and it all came together and turned out great!  This is a picture of our Stake Young Women's Presidency at Mutual Dell in AF Canyon. We had such a wonderful time, and it was fun to spend time with my wonderful friends in the Presidency. 

This picture may be hard to see, but it part of a full rainbow that we saw driving home on June 13th. I loved the many different types of weather we had this spring.

These two pictures are from June 25th at Thanksgiving Point. My sister-in-law plans field trips every week during the summer months and I was able to join this one. We saw the animals, made butter and ice cream and went on a wagon ride. It was a really fun day.

These pictures are from my nephew Brendan's baptism on July 3rd. The first picture is my brother Jon and his family and the second one is Jen and I with Brendan. I love the spirit at baptisms and Brendan was so cute and excited. What a neat day!

After the baptism we went to my sister's house for awhile. I was helping my sweet niece Kate work in my sister's garden. In these pictures we were measuring and drilling holes. Kind of scary--me with a power tool...but Dan was supervising and it turned out really fun!

 

These last two pictures are from that night at our traditional July 4th Southern Family Olympics. Jen put a bunch of pictures on her blog, so I will only put these two, but it was such a fun night. We have such a fun family! 

I was on a team with my sister Michelle's family, so the first picture is me and Jenny doing the three legged race. The next picture just shows how much fun we have. I love that everyone in the picture is smiling and obviously having fun (and as a side note, I love the view of the lake and mountians from my parents back yard.)

Well, I suppose that is more than enough pictures for now. No wonder I haven't had time to post, I've been doing too many fun things!

Other than those fun things, I have been working more at the hospital lately. I have some big decisions to make in the the next few months about work.  There is a possibility of a full time position opening up that would be a good career move, but would require A LOT more time, so I have been thinking and praying a lot about what to do. So, that has kept me busy as well.

Overall it has been a wonderful spring and summer so far.  I really do have a wonderful life!

Happy Independence Day!

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;

’Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land

Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

--Francis Scott Key

I took this picture of the flag last night at our family Independence Day celebration.  I love the flag and all that it represents!

Today, in church we stood and sang "The Star Spangled Banner."  I was really touched by the second and third verses, which we don't sing much anymore. I love how much the Founders of our nation trusted in God!

We are so blessed with "victory and peace" and I do praise the Power that made and preserved this beautiful nation!

The beautiful sunset last night!

After my month long abscence, I really should write more, but that is all I have time for today. I will write more soon!