Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays! We hope that you had a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

-JD & Nat

I Love to See the Temple....

We went to the Redlands Temple on Tuesday followed by Oceanside. Wednesday we went back to Newport Beach along the Pacific Coast Highway followed by Huntington Beach. Beautiful temples, we love going to new ones!

Kidnap the Sandy Claws

We went to Disneyland on Monday and had a blast, we rode everything we wanted to, at least twice. The lines were short, and the 80 degree weather felt fantastic. JD also is a Galactic Hero now, outscoring the Buzz Lightyear Astroblaster ride. Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Mansion, Icicle Castle, ornaments and trees, yay for Christmas in Disneyland!

• Splash Mountain
• Pirates of the Caribbean (2)
• Indiana Jones (2)
• Tiki Room (shouldn't have)
• Thunder Mountian Railroad (2)
• Peter Pan (an absolute must)
• Tangled Line (10 minutes before realized this wasn't a ride)
• Space Mountain
• Buzz Lightyear (several)
• Toon Town Walk Through
• Captain E.O. (never again, but worth it once)
• Sleeping Beauty Castle Walk Through (how long has that been there!?!?)
• Haunted Mansion (Nightmare Before Christmas) (2)
• People Watching Galore :)

Los Angeles Temple

JD and I have had a wonderful couple of days in California. We drove straight through (with walking breaks every two hours for the sake of my blood) on Friday in time to hang out with my cousins for the evening. Saturday we went to the Los Angeles temple. The LA temple is HUGE. We had a reminder of what a small world we live in when we ended up in the same session as Jordan Allred from high school, whom I probably haven't seen since he graduated in 2004. We checked out their new visitor center and waited for the lighting of the palm trees, something that just doesn't happen in Utah. We are looking forward to more adventures in the upcoming days.

Deck the Halls!

I love decorating for Christmas! It is my second favorite thing next to fall decorations (I always want to cry when I put away the leaves and pumpkins and sunflowers, but Christmas kind of makes up for it).

Take a nice look at the lights on the tree. Why you may ask? Because this was the only time the whole tree lit up. The middle lights have a bad light somewhere and so it is dark with a lit top and bottom now. I am not even going to mess with it this year. I will probably take the lights off when putting the tree away this year and just restrand come next Christmas with clearanced lights, but at least there are pictures to prove they all worked at one point in time.

The following pictures are the biproduct of my favorite day of work each year. The day after Thanksgiving we are always dead slow. So I always buy a few rolls of wrapping paper and wrap everything all the counters, the door, and even the tissue boxes. It is SO fun and our patients love it every year. This years theme was candy cane. Last year was pine trees.

Run Santa! Run!

There is nothing that kicks off a holiday season like running a themed 5K. No zombies this time. Today everyone came out in red for the Run Santa Ogden 5K. Talk about fun, rules: be dressed as Santa. and that is about it. There were a couple of green Grinches and Cindy Lou Who's, lots of reindeer dogs, and a ton of Santas. The aid stations were handing out milk and cookies and finishers received a candy cane. It was so fun doing this with Erin, definately will do this one again next year!

London 2012

I LOVE the Olympics. While the winter olympics were held a few months ago, I can't help but look forward to the upcoming summer olympics. Am I super lame and alone in this? A few pictures of the olympic site for the London 2012 games were released a few days ago, and while it looks like they will definately need two years to finish everything they are building, I got so excited. So to tide me over I looked up World Competition events happening in Utah and you can bet I will be in Park City Februrary 4-5 for the FIS World Championships of Ski Half Pipe and Arial/Moguls at Park City Mountain and Deer Valley resorts. Just a tidbit of info: this year and most likely this World Championship will determine if the ski half pipe event will be added to the olympic sporting event roster in Russia 2014. Talk about neat.

Goodbye Sleep Deprivation

So in fantastic news for the week JD got a new job! He will be the new 'official' pharmacy technician at South Ogden IHC. I say 'official' because he has worked there as a PRN for the past 2 years so he isn't exactly new to the job, but a benefits position opened up and he got it. We are super excited for the change and having weekends off, no graveyards, no swings. It will be an exciting change to say the least. The hospital is going to keep him on PRN to help out but when he does cover a shift, he won't have to do a graveyard, he can just come at his convenience to get things taken care of. So essentially the jobs will be reversed, but this is a super fantastic reversal. It will be good with school for JD, and with my sanity. I have had two years of no weekend events because JD was always working graves Friday and swings Saturday with sleep in between that. It is always a sad event waking him up for church on Sunday because he is exhausted. But NO MORE! :) (at least no more after they hire his replacement at the hospital; in the mean time we have a few more 'fun' weeks of overtime covering the shifts at South Ogden on top of our other jobs, but they are a great staff and it has been fun working with them again on my end)

Of Things That Matter Most

It has been a fun few weeks for JD and I. Life has been moving onward and forward quite rapidly, which in some ways is good and in others not so good. We have both been balancing two jobs with school, trying to help out with the South Ogden pharmacy as they are short working shifts when we can help out, last week I worked 53 hours, I don't want to know what JD worked, because I am pretty sure it was more than that. I know there are like a bazillion people who are busier, but it is still crazy where it feels like I am still catching up (and following up with weekly blood testing and medication alterations) from the month I spent in a recliner in July and suddenly we are in November. It is amazing how quickly one can get caught up in the activities and comings and goings of life and neglect the important things, at least I know I fit in that category. When this happens, it is also amazing at how little is actually accomplished that is worth anything much. I know that I need to prioritize better and put things into my routine that currently aren't present.

Why am I bringing this all up? Because I LOVED President Uctdorf's talk from General Conference. "Let us simplify our lives a little. Let us make the changes necessary to refocus our lives on the sublime beauty of the simple, humble path of Christian discipleship—the path that leads always toward a life of meaning, gladness, and peace."

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I love Halloween but I must admit it saddens me that my favorite month of October is almost over. It has been a fun month with some fantastic adventures....

JD applied for a new job, interviews in November.i didn’t have a CNS bleed and 1 week of prednisone healed me up quite nicely with no hospital visit.Vernal temple and dinosaurs.craft night with Tara making some super cute blocks.dressing up as a knee replacement patient for Halloween.lots of work for both JD and I as we fill in at South Ogden pharmacy on top of our other jobs.school moving along.dinner with David and Erin.night of the running dead 5K.fall break.therapeutic blood finally.Nat turned 24.listening to Elder Bednar at the institute.primary program.snow.fall leaves drive through Weber and Parley's canyon.India mission reunion and Ganesh with Ben.General Conference..

Peace

what I felt today

Fall Break

Fall break this year found us in Vernal, home of Utah's Dinosaur Land. We got to do a bit of exploring but thanks to my health, another trip to Dinosaur National Monument is in order for the future but we did have fun and it is nice to take a break from work and school.

The highlight of the trip was going to the Vernal Utah temple. It was a very neat building with an interesting history. In 1907 it was dedicated as a tabernacle by Joseph Fielding Smith, in the meeting he stated that he expected a temple to be erected in their very midst in the future. In 1997 President Hinckley dedicated the tabernacle which had been gutted and redesigned, as a temple. The brick required to complete the temple was taken from a house that a non-member was going to have raised. When approached he allowed members to take the brick house apart brick by brick; as the brick came from the very same brickyard as what was used to construct the tabernacle in the 1900's. It serves members of Wyoming, Colorado, and Eastern Utah.

The ride was beautiful. I was very grateful for a late fall this year as there were bright yellow quakies and red maples all along our journey, one of my favorite parts of fall. We stopped in Park City on the way home for a bit as well. Sunday night we also had the opportunity to listen to Elder Bednar speak at the WSU Institute. It was fun to see a lighter side to him as he talked about the importance of feeding grandchildren icecream, among other important things. All in all it was a great weekend, it was fun being with JD Friday and Saturday as I usually don't get to see him since he works wacky shifts. Happy Fall Break!

Night of the Running Dead

Emily, Christie, Erin, K-Beth, and I ran in the Undead Race yesterday at This is the Place State Park. It was a blast. When registering you select either survivor or zombie and arrive as such for the actual event. All proceeds went to Huntsman Cancer Institute. As can be seen from the photos, we were all undead. When the race starts, the survivors begin running, 2 minutes later they let the zombies loose; so you have a whole lot of zombies chasing a bunch of normal looking runners. I felt amazingly good about finishing, breathing was hard on the hills but for the most part my bum lung did just fine pretty tight compared to the left side but it worked. It is amazing to think that about 2 1/2 months ago I struggled walking around a level cul-de-sac from pain and the inability to get enough oxygen in comparison to running down a hill in Salt Lake City yesterday. I would be feeling fine while running down an easy portion and would start walking just because I was freaked my lung would suddenly betray me if I didn't take it easy. Super cool, super exciting, super relieved that everything went well. Erin was super nice and made a delicious cake for my birthday afterwards. Talk about a fantastic day!

Twenty Four

Twenty four oceans
Twenty four skies
Twenty four failures
Twenty four tries
Twenty four finds me
In twenty-fourth place
Twenty four drop outs
At the end of the day
Life is not what I thought it was
Twenty four hours ago


And You're raising these twenty four voices
With twenty four hearts
With all of my symphonies
In twenty four parts
But I want to be one today
Centered and true


I want to see miracles, see the world change
Wrestled the angel, for more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
(Switchfoot, 24)

What an interesting age to be.....there is a song all about turning 24, a television show that I have only ever watched one episode of, and there are 24 hours in a day. So far I am liking it quite a bit, we'll see how the rest of the year goes!

A place for everything and everything....where?

I have a tendency to lose things. These things include: gift cards, SD cards, keys, books, notes, etc. They are never lost, lost, but more so lost in an obvious place that whether I have looked there once or not, if I did, I didn't see it. A few recent cases in point:

1-India Reunion Friday: we were leading one of JD's companions to the reunion from Ganesh. I had the instructions and map printed out and was doing a fantastic job navigating us there. Suddenly, after pulling off VanWinkle, I couldn't find the map, it had vanished out of my hands! I searched and searched, until we came to the last known spot to turn, JD stopped, Ben stopped and we went through the car unable to find the map. I ended up introducing my dad to Facebook by having him log into my account to read off the address from the event invite. THREE days later, I found it, for some reason I had folded it up tiny and put it in the mirror in the window shade.

2-Pharmacy Saturday: I lost our cash bag. I had counted out the deposit from the night before that very morning and somehow it vanished. I spent 2 hours looking everywhere for it along with our pharmacist who had also seen it. We both had searched a drawer that was one below the usual one we put it in, and on the third try it was there, to my great relief, there has to be a Gospel Principle story somewhere in that one.

3-Before work, Tuesday 6:00 AM: I start work at 6:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was up and ready and taking care of a few things, a couple of dishes in the sink, picking up some clothes and stuff, when it turned 6:00 and it was time to head for work, I went to my purse to get my keys, when: dang it! Not in there. I go through my whole purse a couple of times (I don't even have a big purse) and search everywhere, and anywhere but to no avail. 6:20 I cave and wake up JD asking if he knew where my keys are. In a sleepy stupor he rolls out of bed and Frankenstein walks into the living room straight to my purse, he peruses through it, lifts it up off the table, and YAY there are my keys, right under the purse! A withering look, kiss on the cheek, have a good day, and JD went straight back to bed. Traffic was nonexistent and I was only 4 minutes late for work.

I am grateful for a husband who knows how I think, more so than I, and usually finds my misplaced out-in-the-open treasures. I just need to work on the admonition of a place for everything and everything.....something, I'll remember later.

India Bangalore Mission Reunion

We went to the India Bangalore Mission Reunion last night and it was pretty neat. It was fun knowing quite a few of the guys there. Bonus of the night was going to Ganesh, the best Indian food restaurant in Utah hands down. It is amazing to see the men who have gone to India the past two years fill about half a gym (with a very good attendance) who were called to served in a country boasting 1.1 billion people. The Indian government hasn't allowed outside missionaries into the country since March 2009 so much of the work now being done is by natives until the visa hold is lifted. Newly released president Nichols assured all that the work continues to move forward and growth has only grown in India despite the trials.

Happy October

Welcome to October everyone! My very favorite month of the year! Why?

• General Conference
• Birthday
• Apple Cider
• Family birthdays: Ken, Grandma Ada, Kassie, Jeff Dawson, Kaytie, Cassie, Maggie, Jeff Speth
• Halloween
• Decorations
• Sweater season
• Leaves: colors, crackling sound
• Sleeping with the window open and needing quilts
• Fall Break
• Carving Pumpkins
• 

Moving to the Country

This is my ode to peaches. Oh how I love them! They are delicious and fantastic and I love the people who donate them to me. Thank you: mom and dad, McQuivey family, Joni, Roberts family, South Ogden Pharmacy, Jeff, and any future contributors. Peaches are one of the big highlights of fall for me. I delight in their colors of red orange and yellow, the juiciness, and how wonderful they are to eat plain or bake in crisps and cobblers. And as I shout out to my cousins, I wish I could share your Peaches music video here, but alas I do not have it. Jessie, help me!

The Power of One

We went to a birthday party for Great Grandma Speth this afternoon. This being her 97th birthday equates into it also being a uber-extended family reunion. Looking around at her remaining children, her grandchildren, great grandchildren (JD's category) and great great grandchildren, it is amazing to think of the legacy that has been created by an individual making right choices and being there for her family. She knows everyone, including myself who has only been in the family for a year. She supports everyone, at the young age of 95 she made the trip from College Ward to Bountiful to be at our sealing. She is feisty and fun and it is amazing that she is still able to live on her own and even help other single sisters around her. She calls each of us a special birthday present, but she is a gift and inspiration to each of us. As I looked at the 100 plus people in attendance, I mentioned to JD that without her, no one would be there today, it is humbling and something to think about as we focus so much on the present and the stresses and trials we go through, in the long run, it is the big decisions that matter and that is the legacy worth building upon.

The Plight of the Unflexible

While one might question the validity of making the goal of touching one's toes. The said person would respond with the sadness of not being able to stretch even within a foot of their toes due to unflexible muscles. There are a great many benefits that come with flexibilty included are:

• increased blood and nutrients to tissues
• improved muscle coordination
• improved posture
• increased physical and mental relaxation
• releases muscle tension and soreness

So apparently this is something definately worth pursuing. Otherwise this person will be an uncoordinated, clumsy, bad blooded, stress case for the said individual's life; hence let such a goal be made, even encouraged.

Let us all celebrate the drive to be a little more flexible!

Music of the Night.....

We have our piano back! JD and I bought this a month before we got married, it was $100 on KSL.com and our only rule was that all the keys played. While that was true at the time of purchase, having the piano in a swamp cooler home next to an open fireplace changed the wood and made several keys in the middle C range stick. When we moved to Riverdale, JD's dad said he would keep the piano and refinish it for us. He did an amazing job. It looks completely different, all the keys play again, no more marker all over the seat or sharpie on the wood above the keys. It has been greatly missed and I will be teaching lessons to our upstairs neighbor.

Ode to Autumn

I LOVE FALL! It is one of my favorite times of the year. I love crisp mornings where a blanket is needed. I love the colors of the leaves. I love the rain. I love jackets. I love the return of holidays. I love the food: corn, peaches, pumpkin pie, apples, Thanksgiving dinner...Aspen Loop and other car drives, decorating the house, the colors of autumn: red, orange, yellow, green, brown. I love the above photograph that JD gave me for my birthday 2 years ago. I love my birthday and October in general. I love school. I LOVE FALL!

The Lincoln Highway

So the following is the much anticipated Lincoln head....yes I know you have all been waiting. If you ever want to see it in person, it is on Happy Jack Road in Wyoming; it was built in commemoration of the highest point on the transcontinental highway. I also have a picture of me with the plaque honoring one of my heros, Stephen Mather, one of the major developers of the National Parks in the United States. He is right up there with John Muir in my book. (if you don't know what I am talking about, I highly recommend the Ken Burn's documentary on the National Parks)

Colorado Crossroads

We are home from a great trip to Colorado. We are so grateful to Shawn, Kari, and family for letting us stay with them! It was so nice getting a break from school, work, needles, doctors visits and to have the opportunity to spend time together.

We spent a day in Denver playing at the zoo and aquarium. We had a lot of fun relaxing and playing. We got to see a polar bear go swimming right in front of us in a dive tank. We fed sting rays...weird but super cool. Better yet, I made it a whole day doing a lot of stuff, not without getting worn out, but still made it.

We spent another fantastic day in Denver after our creature adventures. We went to the temple and did some family work for Maheshwari, a friend of ours from India serving a mission in San Jose California. Shawn and Kari gave us tickets to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at a dinner theater in town. It was super fancy with an amazing menu and was a ton of fun.

We also spent a few days in Rocky Mountain National Park. We will have to come back again when I can hike more but we did make it up to Alberta Falls which was beautiful, we also hiked to Bear Lake. On our second day we drove through the whole park to Grand Lake, it was a super cute little town. The drive made me a little nervous (ask JD and he will tell you) but it was beautiful being up high in the Rockies, even with the jagged cliffs right outside my window, the temperature was perfect and we had a fun time hiking and sightseeing.

The drives were also a lot of fun as can be seen by my fashionable TED hose. We made several stops along the way. I will post the picture of the giant Lincoln head we found on our way home. This one is a pioneer marker in Lyman Wyoming.