Many Many updates!

Holy wow, sorry I have been such a blogging slacker.  Like all of you  I have been dealing with finals and work and finishing out this school year.  Also we have been decorating our new house for Christmas! I love this time of year! We bought a real tree!(i cant do fake i need the smell) and decorated it together as we are celebrating our first real Christmas together!  Also we have been cleaning and preparing to have families stay with us for this holiday season! We went and saw the temple lights, twice because I just can't seem to get enough of them! They had many new displays this year! It gets better and better every year! We took a friend of my brothers who is not a member, and she seemed to enjoy it too! Especially the Nativity displays inside the visitors center!   I love spreading the Joy of this season! Christ's birth is truly a reason to celebrate! and i hope that we all keep the real spirit of christmas in our minds this season. I do feel like Christmas came too fast this year! I feel like Thanksgiving was just yesterday and now we are doing Christmas and before you know it that will be over and we will be in 2009! Where did this year go!? My land time is flying by so I try to enjoy every second!

Well on other notes, Kenny has been throwing up all night and is now finally asleep so I decided to blog.  He wasn't going to go to church this morning, I was just going to go to sacrament meeting alone, but he decided he could at least make it to sacrament meeting.  So we went and are sitting there as they are doing the releasing and callings, and sure enough they call us to be CTR 5 teachers, funny thing is they never asked us first! They never met with us to have us accept the calling, Kenny and I were stunned and in so much shock we didnt even stand, haha so apparently we are now CTR 5 teachers.  Not that we won't have fun, we just expected to be at least notified first haha.  The joys of Primary! We really are excited!  I hope all of you are having a great Christmas! Be safe!

Soldiers Return Home...

So I was watching the news this morning as they showed a division of soldiers returning from a year tour in Iraq (which brought tears to my eyes for sure!).   And as I was watching I saw a girl I know, waiving her flag as she waited for her fiancee to be released to her! What a joyful Thanksgiving this will be for her and all those 60 families of the returned soldiers! It was a year ago this Thanksgiving that my husband came home from Iraq for his two week leave.  That Thanksgiving you can bet I was most thankful for having my husband home on Thanksgiving.  But this isn't about me.  This is about being Thankful.  And as you celebrate Thanksgiving this week with your family and friends, please take a moment to be Thankful for your Freedom and those Soldiers that sacrifice so much!  I never understood the magnitude of their service.  I don't think most people do until you really experience it.  But coming from someone who spent a year without her husband, and many of our first holidays without him, each holiday is more and more special.  Be Thankful for your friends and family and the time you have with them as well.  Oh happy day for those Soldiers returning from Iraq.  I salute you and your families and will be taking a moment of silence, remembering all those who have fought and will continue to fight for our freedom!

FAmily Pictures!

So we took family pictures before Chris left... here is my favorite one.  I altered it a little using PiKnic But i like it!

In other news, we finally got the keys to our house and started painting it!  Its so exciting and stressful to own your own house! I cant wait to move in and decorate and go grocery shopping! But at the same time I am scared to think about the house payment and how poor we are going to be! Oh well it will be a blast! So we hope to move in the next few weeks! Definitely before Thanksgiving!  Life is busy for us right now.  We are full with work and school and moving in.  Kenny's truck has been broken too, so he has been fixin it up!  We are trying to move in before the holidays, but time is going by so fast I cant believe it is almost Thanksgiving and then after that is Christmas! My goodness, someone asked me the other day if I had started my Christmas shopping yet! ARE YOU KIDDING! haha I haven't even thought about it and I probably wont start til the week before! Im such a procrastinator when it comes to that stuff!  Well i wish I had more exciting things to write but thats about it right now! 

Chris's MTC Pictures!

So I finally got some of Chris' pictures from the MTC loaded up here are a few of the best ones.

Happy Halloween!

So in case you didn't know I work in the childcare at Mountainside Fitness! I love my job! It has its up and downs but the kids are my favorite! You can bet how excited I was to see them dressed up in their cute Halloween costumes! Well continuing the tradition I bought candy to hand out to the kids as they left today.  As a last minute thing I decided to get some pretzels (they were shaped like pumpkins and bats) and some teddy grahams for the younger ones who may not want the chocolate and sweets!  So I have my basket mixed with my goodies and could you believe that most of the parents refused the candy for their kids and insisted that they have the pretzels and teddy grams (although you may be thinking well it is a gym...) I was appalled!  It's HALLOWEEN for goodness sacks! Let your kids have some Candy! What is this world coming too! I mean everyone is so ridiculously set on being in shape, having the perfect body, and insisting that your children to the same! Well I am all for feeding your kids healthy things, and not letting them have candy on a regular basis, but this is Halloween! Let your kids have some Candy! Man o man i just wanted to say this one little piece wont hurt.  Of course you are going to manage their intake tonight because they will get loads, but making them refuse 1 piece at the gym! Ridiculous! So you parents out there! Please let your kids have some candy tonight! For me!  

Which leads me to another point! Why is society today so focused on appearance, again I believe in being healthy and managing your food and sweet intake.  But come on spending all of your time at the gym is really unnecessary! and getting ready to go to the gym to work out is even more unnecessary! I see people in full on make-up at the gym! Come on it is just going to sweat off! I wish people were not so into their appearances.  I feel like today's society is obsessed with their appearance, I mean I guess one would have to be if their role models are those fake people that you see on TV and magazines, what makes me so sad is that people fail to realize that they are just that Fake! They are airbrushed and photoshopped and put in the right camera angles so that you can see their "best side".  It just depresses me that society is going where it is.  Be who you are! That is who god made you to be! Believe in yourself! Know you are beautiful! Everyone is!  And you are much more real than those fake people in the media!

Called to Serve

wow, i have not updated this in a while! I promise to be better! I love these things! They help keep everyone informed!

Well this week has been a very emotional one! We took Chris to the MTC on Wednesday.  That is quite an experience! He is serving in the Hungary Budapest mission and is so excited! Anyway, we flew up there on Monday night.  We got in real late and didn't make it to my grandmas house until like 11:30.  The next day was filled with visitors.  You see my Grandma lives in a small town in Utah, Howell is the name, and it is comprised of mostly related people.  So four of her five sisters live there, along with some of their children and so forth.  The house was filled with a steady stream of family members all day long, people wanting to say their goodbyes and good lucks.  It was great but exhausting as well.  Then the next day, was THE day.  We all woke up and showered and were out of the house by 8:30am.  There was much anticipation and hesitation as we made the drive up to Provo.  Chris was very ready, but the rest of us had mixed feelings.  This is something that we have grown up with our whole life.  We knew it was probably going to happen.  And it is something that we are so proud of him for.  But still, how were we going to say goodbye, for 2 years!?  It was tough.  Walking into the MTC (missionary training center) was so cool!  It was an experience i will never forget.  Seeing all those anxious missionaries and their family members, the spirit was so strong and we just knew we were in the right place.  My mom and I held up remarkably well, we didn't cry through the whole thing like we imagined.   There were tears at the beginning,  I will never be able to make it through "Called to Serve" anymore without crying through it.  It is such a great song, and experiencing it in the MTC is like nothing I have ever imagined.  Then we made it through the rest.  Until the very end... the goodbyes.  The president of the MTC said that it would be easier if we acted like it was a bandaid, the faster you do it the less it hurts.  And Chris took that to heart.  We all start crying, Mom, Dad, Chris, Skyler, it was insane and he hugged us all and then left, in a split second he was gone.  But you know what, we are at peace with it.  There is just something about knowing that he is out serving the Lord, that makes it a little bit easier.  Don't get me wrong we still miss him like crazy, and life won't be the same without his crazy sarcastic comments, he was always the one that kept us laughing.  But I know that he will be great! I know that the people of Hungary will love him as much as we do! He is definitely doing a great work.  We are so proud of him! And the MTC is something that I hope everyone gets to experience in their lifetime, it is just so awesome!

Flowers are nice except when....

YOU GET SCAMMED!!!! 

So I was looking over our bank statement online, like I usually do, and I noticed a charge from Easy saver 800-355-1837 for $14.95.  I have no idea what it was for so I asked my husband if he had bought anything online lately.  He told me no so I decided to research the matter further.  There was a number so I called it and of course it is past business hours.  So I decided to just copy and past that whole section in to google to do some research and guess what! There are about 20 other people I found that were scammed and had the same charges as I did, but they did not authorize them or buy anything! They said the common thread was that they had all ordered from Pro-Flowers at one time or another.  I am so frustrated and it turns out that they had charged me before for $1.95 as well.  Just like the other complaints that I found online!  

So this is just a warning to all of you! Please be extra careful when you order from Pro-Flowers, apparently there are some boxes that are checked when you go through the ordering process and if you don't uncheck them they charge you for some service fee your not even using! Now I have to go through the bank with all this fraud stuff.  So please be careful and read the fine print when ordering anything online.  I know I will be telling my husband too because he is the one who ordered from Pro-Flowers and I don't think that we will ever order from them again!

Counting down the weeks!

Well friends it is getting down to the weeks! I am almost to a single digit countdown! Life has continued to be so busy for us! School will be over in a few weeks, and I feel so overwhelmed! It seems like I have a project and paper due in every class, with final exams as well.  But I know that if I can get through this then I will then only have about a week until Kenny comes home from his deployment! AHHH it feels so good to finally be at the end.  Although I HATE deployments and having to spend a year away from my husband it has definitely strengthened me.  I knew going into this that the Lord would never give me more than I could handle but I have to admit I thought maybe he forgot who he was giving this trial too.  But like every other trial I continue to be amazed and know that the Lord helped me through this whole thing.  What a strength he is and I am definitely blessed to have his hand continue to help my life.  I have learned so much about myself and even Kenny while he has been gone.  This experience was tough but it has enriched my live I know.  I cant wait! Counting down the days...... :)

We are so close

It has been a while since I have written.  Life has been so busy.  School is going good and work is as well.  I have been taking a Boot Camp class at Mountainside Fitness.  It is hard but I really enjoy it.  I feel so much better about myself.  I hope that I will continue to work out after this class ends.  Kenny says that he would like to work out with me when he gets home.  So we can work out as a couple. Aww how cute!

The first two sessions of General conference were today.  It was weird at first to hear them say President Thomas S. Monson as president of the church. But I know that he will be a great prophet and he will so so well for the church.  He truly is an instrument in the Lord's hands.  The talks were all very good, but tomorrow I need to pay closer attention I think, and definitely get more sleep tonight so I am not dosing off during conference.

I got to talk to Kenny today. That was nice cause it has been about a week since I have actually got to talk to him and have a conversation with him.  We are starting to make plans for when he gets home, which is getting closer and closer! We can't wait to start our lives together, we need to find a place to live and move our stuff in, we plan on taking a couple little trips and a big one to Hawaii as a kind of "make-up" honeymoon and I can't wait! We are going to have a blast! Here is just another day in the life of an army wife.

Children

As many of you know I am a primary teacher at church.  I teach the CTR 8 class and what sweet spirits they have.  I learn more from them each Sunday then I think that I can ever teach them.    As I was teaching the lesson today on Enos and the power of prayer and forgiveness, I was asking the kids questions about the story and what sweet spirits they have.  They give the most simple answers but they are completely correct.  It is such a great experience to teach them every Sunday and to learn from them.  Then we went into Primary and to listen to them sing is a tear jerker.  We are currently practicing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives".  When the children sing the last verse it brings tears to my eyes.  They sing it with confidence and you can hear them bear witness of the redeemer and their savior.  You can hear their testimony.  I am so thankful for the calling that I have and for the sweet spirit of the children.  They are such a great example to me!  I am truly thankful for all that I have and what the Lord has blessed me with.

Being in an Army Life

Living with your husband thousands of miles away in a danger zone is really stressful.  Not to mention so frustrating because I never know when I may get a phone call or when he will get on Yahoo messenger.  I don't want to miss an opportunity to talk to him, but I also need to have a life, I can't just sit at home and wait for him to call or write me. It is very hard to balance a life and waiting all at the same time.

But I did get to talk to him today.  He is doing well, he is ready to come home and I am ready to have him home.  He says that the atmosphere is getting more depressing as all the soldiers are tired of being away from their families and their lives.  What a hard thing.  I can't imagine having to pick up my life and move to a country I can't even find on a map and have to live there for a year with people that don't want you there.  Constantly having to look over your shoulder and make sure that you are safe.  My husband, along with all the other soldiers, are my Heroes.  What they do for this country is amazing to me.  A concept that I have yet to grasp.  The love that they have for their fellowman is great.  They are willing to fight, leave their friends and family for a year, or even more and even possibly die for people they don't even know.  What a great example of Christ-like love.  I look up to my husband greatly.  I definitely think that I married someone better than me, and I learn something new from him everyday.  What an amazing man he is.  For those of you following the countdown, he will be home in approximately 2 and a half months! :)

Blogging

I noticed that many people have these things, what do they call them Blogs, and I thought to myself what a cute idea! I want one to. So here is me testing out this thing they call blogging.  I was sitting in my room today talking to Kenny on webcam (what a fabulous thing that is if I do say so myself ) and my mom called me out to the living room. I go to the door and the mail man has dropped off two massive crates, with locks on them from my husband.  Apparently it is stuff that he no longer needs in Iraq and he decided to send them home to me. Now can I ask a silly question... why did he not send me the key.  Man I love my husband, sometimes doesn't think of the most obvious things.  Well you may say well why is she sharing this story about her husband sending crates, well him sending his stuff home means that HE in fact will be coming home and that is something I can not wait for! I am so excited to finally have my husband home so we can start a real family.  He served his country well and now I want him back :).  To add to the excitement I recently purchased tickets to the Kenny Chesney concert on the 31st of May, which Kenny will be here for.  We are very excited for that and our "first date" when he gets home.