1. You never will know exactly how someone feels, even if you feel your situation is similar. We have all been sent here with different strengths and coping abilities. Every person's life has affected their choices and reactions and they cannot be expected to act the same as you. Just love them.
2. Passion for life and causes is valuable to motivate us, but can make us arrogant and short-sighted about the things that are important to other people. We must always respect others desires and passions if we are to deserve their respect as well.
3. Any situation can be made to sound very dramatic, no matter how innocent or harmless it really was. Entire blame can be shifted and often is, depending on the telling of the story. It is important to not make snap judgements when hearing one side of the story. There is always a different opinion on the other side that should be heard if you feel so inclined to involve yourself in judging a situation.
4. Nothing makes us more unhappy than not owning up to the consequences of our choices. The gift of free agency from our Father in Heaven only allows us to be free when we acknowledge our mistakes as well as our successes and keep learning.
5. You will never be able to make someone else happy. It is every one for themselves. The harder you work to make someone else happy, the more discontented they will become as they become selfish and dependent on your care.
6. The less you trust in God, the harder you have to work. God intended us to be happy, but when we are so caught up in worry and the complexities of life, we forget to trust God. Make the right choices and let God take care of the details.
7. Don't ever put anyone on a pedestal. They will most certainly fall. Love and believe in the goodness of people but don't expect them to be any more flawless than anyone else.
8. Don't expect you'll ever reach a point where you know enough. Learn to live with disappointment. Expect your heart to be broken. Expect a miracle every once in a while. Expect to be amazed by the depth of our Heavenly Father's and Jesus Christ's love for you.
She loved them! 
She gnawed on the pear till it was slimy and very rehydrated 
and then gnawed some more 
till it kind of just dissolved. 
It was just like eating a slice of pear, but it took her longer and kept her entertained at the same time. I highly recommend it!
This one's for my sister Cherish. She got Kelsey this onesie when we were in Utah. We love you Cherish!
So about a year or so ago Jeremy told me he wanted to learn to tie his shoes. I was not looking forward to it. It sounded like an exercise in frustration to me. I didn't think I had the patience for it. We tried once and both ended up totally frustrated. So I relegated the task to Daddy. Well, the subject was just kind of dropped and then last week Jeremy wanted to try again so I finally sat down with him and taught him how to do it. I kept my patience but he got frustrated and we ended the lesson. I thought we could practice a little bit every day during school and eventually, after a few weeks, he would get it. Well the next day he sat down and voiced aloud the steps to me and tied his shoes all by himself! I was so amazed and relieved! This is the picture of that first time he tied his shoes. Great Job Jeremy!
On my birthday eve my sister and her family took our family to dinner at Marie Callendar's. So yummy! 
Kelsey tried cornbread and this lemon. 
She found the taste a little shocking but kept eating it. 
On my birthday, I got to sleep almost all day, thanks to Daddy! Thanks Honey! In the afternoon, Jeremy had a T-ball game. He got to be the catcher and thought it was pretty cool. 
After the game we went to Red Robin for my free birthday burger. I drank too many strawberry lemonades cause they were so yummy and I was so thirsty, but they made my tummy sick. 
Jeremy was obliging and ate my birthday sundae for me. 
Kelsey gnawed on her first french fry and a straw. 
The next day we had my birthday dinner with David's family. I took this picture to show you how mature I am now that I'm 33. 
My MIL had gotten me the Wii Fit when we were in Utah and told me I had to act surprised. David said I gave a professional performance. 
Last year there were several little boys born in our ward and only one girl: Kelsey. So I've chosen this little cutie for her and thought I should start on some pictures for their wedding reception slide show. LOL 
My little rock star. He loves instruments. 
Great-grandpa loves Kelsey. He's says she's the prettiest little thing and thinks she might be even prettier than he was. 
Kelsey absolutely loves her big brother. He can get a smile out of her when she won't crack one for anybody else. 
Jeremy's still kinda bored with baseball but he's getting better. In his last game he hit the ball all 3 times he was at bat without the T. Good job baby! 
This is David's Uncle Danny. He's my favorite and I was so excited to introduce Kelsey to him when he came to visit last week. He loved her too. 
The weather's been beautiful and Jeremy is back to the mud pit. I'm so glad. I think there's just something so great about playing in the mud. As long as you're dressed properly of course. 
Kelsey tried her first strawberry. 
Does this face look familiar? She makes it when she tastes pretty much anything. That's my girl! 
Last night we went and got Disneyland passes!!! We're so excited! It's been a while since we had them and it was fun to get them again! We got the kids ears to celebrate. Aren't they so cute?! We're looking forward to many fun Disney adventures over the next year.
The yeast bubbled, 
the dough rose, 
the boy helped, 
and the loaves came out beautiful, soft and yummy! I am sold. I looked at the cost of the ingredients and I am saving money! I know, no surprise, right? But I'm glad to have conquered my fear and now have to continue to conquer my inner lazy child and bake more bread. 
Wish me luck!
Jeremy is a professional traveler. We could probably be some kind of gypsy family and he'd be perfectly content. He just sits in the back with his movies, toys, books and snacks and is happy for hours. He doesn't have to pee for 6 or more hours and he doesn't get bored and ask when we're getting there. What a dream child. 
Kelsey on the other hand was only happy for an hour or so and definitely needed to eat every couple hours. We were originally going to make the trip without Daddy but I'm so glad he was able to come since Kelsey thought I should sit in the back where she could keep an eye on me. I am easily bored on trips because I get carsick if I do anything besides just sit there so I kept amused by taking pictures. I have hundreds but I'll just bore you with a few. 
We brought lots of yummy snacks. This is a chocolate covered raisins on my banana. Some of you will love this and some of you will be grossed out, and I can pretty much guess who is who. 
The scenery was so beautiful.
I also amused myself very much making acronyms for all the landmarks we came across. GBH, the Great Basin Highway. This is the VVG, the Virgin Valley Gorge of course.
A tow truck being towed by a tow truck. For some reason this always amuses me. 
We just missed this accident and we felt so blessed cause somebody went over the embankment so far we couldn't see the car, just the detached trailer. 
The St. George temple was so pretty and Jeremy was so happy to get out of the car and go hear the Jesus statue talk in the visitor's center. It's his favorite part of every temple. 
Our first morning in Utah was Valentine's Day and Cherish made us chocolate chocolate chip muffins for breakfast in cute little heart wrappers. 
We were so excited it was snowing because we had planned on going sledding with my sister's family and the snow had been melting before we got there. 
They lined up all the sleds and slid down the hill in a train. 
Kelsey and I sat at the bottom of the hill and ate snow. She loved it so I took her hand out of her snowsuit and let her scoop it up herself and eat it. She didn't mind the cold at all and just kept going back for more! 
We made snow angels too; can you see Kelsey's little one on the left? 
Hi Daddy! 
Jeremy was so great! He marched up the big hill over and over all by himself to sled. He even went up to other people who were sledding that day in the park and pointing to their sled said, "Excuse me, can I have that?" How could they say no? He was so cute and polite, so I saw him come down the hill on many different sleds. He has no fear of people. I love that, but you've got to watch him. 
Kelsey went down a few times too. She really had no reaction, so I'm not sure if she liked it or not. She's pretty chill. 
I tucked my scarf in and David thought it was highly amusing to see a "tail" on my backside so he took this picture. 
When we were done sledding we went back to Susan and Allan's house to hang out and visit. Allan likes to throw his kids into the big LoveSac, so he and David had fun tossing the kids, and the kids had even more fun being tossed! 
Back at Cherish's house, Jeremy and I had fun doing sumersaults on Cherish's waterbed and Kelsey got her first sink bath. 
Big Girl! I forgot how much I loved the sink bath. Jeremy took baths in the sink till he was 2. It's so much easier than bending over the tub and so much easier to keep clean than the tub. Now that she's so stable sitting up, I think the baby bathtub is going bye bye. 
The next day was Sunday and we went to visit David's brother Jared and my SIL Kathryn. On our right was the GSL, the Great Salt Lake of course. 
We went to church with them and they made us yummy dinner and we played games. 
The kids were entertained by Kathryn on the guitar and their cat, whom Jeremy named the Lioncat. He was talking about that cat days later, telling Grandma how the Lioncat scratched him. It was funny. 
On Monday we went to a timeshare with Cherish that she had reserved for us near Park City. It was so beautiful up there that I wanted to move there and get away from all the drama of our city. 
When we got there we saw one deer walk past our building. It was so cool! 
Then when we had to go to the store later because we forgot the bag with all our toiletries!, we saw a whole herd of deer cross the road in front of us. I tried to take a picture, but it was pitch black so all you can really see is a lot of eyes. There were probably about 15 or 20 deer. It was amazing. 
Our room had a huge jetted bathtub so David made me a bubble bath and we had a wonderful evening relaxing. 
Cherish had fun relaxing and playing with Kelsey. She works so hard and I was glad she got a vacation. It snowed so much while we were there that we didn't go out and do a lot. We did brave the snow to go to the outlets in Park City which was fun. 
The icicles on the sides of the buildings were so amazing! They were huge! 
Wednesday we checked out of the timeshare and went to the Draper Temple Open House. It was really nice and I was so excited we got to go and take our family. This temple has the largest sealing room in the church, which seats 70 people. I guess those architects are finally catching on that we like to invite a lot of people! The temple sits in the middle of a beautiful neighborhood and David and I had fun picking out which house we'd like to live in if we could. We changed clothes and went to downtown Salt Lake City. David really wanted to go to Temple Square and tour the Conference Center since he hadn't seen it. 
While we were downtown we went to see Jared at his new job. 
He showed us the escalator room. It was unexpectedly pretty. 
We drove up around the Capitol building and looked at some of the great old houses up there. 
We saw this really great old meeting house as well. 
It was so pretty and unlike the traditional Mormon chapels built today. We toured Temple Square and went in all the buildings we could since it was so cold outside. 
In the tabernacle we got to hear the organist practicing and the sister missionaries gave us a demonstration of the fantastic acoustics. It was really quite amazing. 
We went to see the Christus, since that's Jeremy's favorite part and he got to listen to it a couple of times, so he was happy. He liked seeing Jesus' shadow on the wall with all the stars and planets surrounding him. 
The Salt Lake Temple was so beautiful in the reflecting pond. 
The temple makes our family beautiful as well. 
The lady who gave us a tour of the Conference Center was so nice. Jeremy walked right up to her and took her hand and she showed us everything. We waited a little longer and then took Cherish home when she got off work. 
Here's the kids snuggling before we packed up on our last morning in Utah. 
We stopped by Cabela's on the way out of town. This was Daddy's treat. I like the outlets and he likes the outdoor stores. I said to Jeremy, "C'mon sweetie, we're going to go look at all the dead animals!" He thought they were pretty cool. 
I had to take this picture for Grandpa/The Mighty Hunter! This freaky thing on David's head is part of the whole camoflauge look for hunting. The whole store was a sea of camoflauge. It was awful. They even had little girl's dresses in camo fabric with lace on them! What in the world! Who buys this stuff? 
Maybe Kelsey needs one of these. 
Or some of those. 
That night we got to Vegas to stay with David's brother Phillip any my SIL Vanessa and baby Abby. It was so fun because usually Abby won't give me the time of day, but this time she loved me and wanted me to carry her around and I loved her too.
Saturday we went shopping at the Costco Business Warehouse. It was fun! They had all sorts of sweet deals on kitchen supplies, utensils, tools, you name it! Kelsey and Abby hung out in the cart. We got cookie samples and they were whole cookies the size of your head! What in the world? 
That night David's parents took us out to dinner for Phillip's birthday. 
He picked sushi, but luckily they had some regular cooked stuff on the menu as well, and it was yummy! 
On Monday morning we headed home and boy was I ready. I was getting very grouchy away from my bed and personal space. This was my favorite bus on the way home as it blocked the wicked sun. Thank you to everyone who made our trip so wonderful and opened your homes to us. We love you and are excited to do it again!
6 years ago
