This one is for you Marion

After a little hiatus, and some peer pressure, I'm ready to get back to work on this blog. I guess I just haven't been in the mood to blog. Is there such a thing as being too grouchy to blog? For me, probably.

Anyway, I just went visiting teaching, and we were talking about Family History and Temple Work, but also about the importance of leaving a history for our posterity. And let's be honest .... I'm never going to keep a journal, and I definitely didn't keep "baby books" for my kids. Don't even get me started on scrapbooking. I just don't have it in me. So ... one of these days I'll print this blog up and my kids will have some record of their lives. In order for me to do that .... I need to keep up on it. So Marion and I will hold each other accountable on our blogging ... so far she's kicking my trash. But I'm pretty competitive, so watch out girl!

First things first, my foot is just about better. I had to wear this ugly contraption for a month:


Better than a cast but clearly worse than no large clumsy object attached to my foot at all. But, I'm all about compromise, so I wore it. He said it was a "walking" boot, so I spent a lot of time on my couch simply NOT walking. No walking = no walking boot. This is how my brain works. I got to stop wearing it a month ago (imagine my excitement) and now I'm just supposed to wear flat shoes for a while. WHAT?!! Talk about cramping my style. I HATE flats. Heels are my FAVORITE and I miss them. I got me some stylin flat boots that only teenagers and trendy people look cute in. Ugh. Not a good look for me. I'm just trying to adjust to my life in flats. You'd be surprised how much it's affecting me. I know ... very dramatic. My friends and my young women have been nice enough to compliment my new look. Well thanks guys, but don't get used to it. I'm now allowed to wear slight heels (no more than 2 inches) and ride my bike (stationary only) and run (a little) but still no basketball. Lame. I've been waiting six years for this stake to get a basketball program running, and now that they are, I can't play. I know ... feel sorry for me.

We had a great Christmas. It was a pain in the neck being on crutches and not being able to drive. I was lucky enough to injure my right foot. REAL SMART. I can barely reach the pedals in my car with my right foot thanks to my short legs. Left-footed driving did not go well. Right foot was too painful. Anyway, what can you do? We really tried to simplify as much as possible with our holiday stuff and just let go of things that didn't need to be done, and for the most part, we were successful. I did a lot of online shopping. No problem there.

This is the picture I made them take on Christmas Eve:

This is how they really felt:

We've still got one Santa believer hanging on .... love that.

As you can see, I didn't get too many pictures on Christmas. This is pretty much it. Not sure where we're going to put all of that stuff ...

We celebrated our 14th Anniversary in December. I ran across a few pictures the other day from the summer we met .... 1996.

This was taken on the steps of the Manti temple. I think this is the last time I was there (not the temple, just the Manti temple)... somehow that doesn't seem that long ago, but our thinness and Dave's hair says that is was forever ago.

You're welcome for intervening on behalf of Dave's fashion ... not sure who was in charge before, but WOW.
I'll have to dig through our old pictures and see if I can find some more pictures that are blog worthy. Wish me luck.

We've had a busy couple of months. Same as always. Work, basketball, school, our callings, Jimmer Fredette, scouts, and HAVING FUN keep us going, going, going. We've had a lot of fun with friends and family. We're surrounded by amazing people, and we love it. Honestly when we moved here, we didn't think we'd be here this long. Frankly, we moved here because we could afford it. Melanie and Jason had been out here for years and really liked it and said it was a great place to raise kids. Recently a work opportunity arose for Dave that would have taken us to another state and greatly impacted our situation financially. It was actually several states away, and we did stop and think about it. But for us, for right now, we know we're supposed to be here, and we're happy to be here. We've lived in a lot of different places, but we've never ever in our lives experienced the kind of friendship and love that we have from our friends here. It's a truly amazing feeling to be surrounded by people who care and serve and love each other like they do here. The friends we've made aren't the kind of people you know for a while and then slowly lose touch with. They're the kind of people we don't ever want to be without. We feel so loved and so blessed. And ... it seriously ROCKS having my sister and her family a half-mile away. Do you even understand the CONVENIENCE and AWESOMENESS of this??? Ask me and I'll tell you. It's the best.

Anyway ...thanks to my super talented friend, Michelle, I no longer HATE the north wall in my great room. Some texture and paint was all it needed. The room looks so different, and so much better! Love it. Thanks Michelle! She's slowly helping me overcome my fear of home improvement projects and Martha Stewart-ness in general. She's got her work cut out for her I tell ya. Now I just need to repaint the rest of my house ...