Holiday Fun

Here are some photos from the holidays and Ethan's birthday. We had a lot of fun attending the Festival of Trees. We saw amazing trees and gingerbread houses! The kids had a great time there.
Ethan also turned 7 in December and wanted to go bowling. So packed up his cousin and a friend and went to BYU game center.
Christmas was great! The boys were spoiled by grandparents and a bit by us as much as we could. Since both of our families are within 2 blocks of where we live, we spent Christmas afternoon with my family, then the evening with Richard's family. We had a really fun time.

Excited for Christmas, despite....

So this season has been challenging financially. We had some $$ set aside for Christmas that we were so excited about! Then of course, what happens?? It all goes out the window to car brakes, cell phone bill that went way, way, way, way over (sob,sob), Salve Regina wanting $$ for books that weren't covered by our financial aid for his MBA, doctor bills and meds for Preston's asthma, and a few other things. Why does that always happen around this time of year? Oh yeah, Trials! Hmmm...how about in January or February instead. Oh well.

But, I am still loving Christmas time! I love being with family and shopping for everybody. I actually enjoyed making Christmas cards and newsletters and one big thing I did this past Sunday was accompany our ward choir in a Christmas choirside. Now you have to understand, our choir director is 91 years old and has had her calling for about 40 years! She loves the Mormon Tab choir, so she likes to do music that they do. Anyways, we performed about 9 songs that included 3 Handel's Messiah songs (yes, the Hallelujah chorus) and some other nicer songs. So I have been practicing like crazy lately. This Sunday we are going to her husbands rest home and putting on a program for their sacrament meeting, then we are heading back to our ward to do a musical program for our sacrament meeting. At least this keeps me at the piano. I do miss the ease and more simple songs we performed in our ward choir in Rhode Island! (Thanks, Holly!)

I hope eveyone's finale of Christmas shopping is pleasant and successful! And may no financial troubles come your way!

Straight No Chaser - 12 Days

These guys are great! I love a good acapella group.

2005 Miami U. Cheezies a cappella: Facebook Song

This is pretty funny! To all of us addicts!

Evolution of Dance

Remember all these dances? This is great!

The Mom Song Sung to William Tell Overture with Lyrics

This is my absolute favorite! You have to listen to this song.

Sniff, sniff, but...must move on!

So, Richard had a series of great interviews with a company called Maleluca up in Idaho Falls a few weeks ago. It went really well for him. We got really excited about it as it's a job more in his field (International Relations) and it would pay more and housing is cheaper! What more could we ask for, right? Well, we just recieved a letter from them saying that there were many applicants and blah, blah, blah, they chose someone else. Grrrr! I was pretty upset. But, now we are accepting the fact that we may just be here for a while longer. Back to the drawing board.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is in a week! When did that happen? We may be having my family over for 'the afternoon dinner' as my mom had some screws taken out of her foot yesterday and will be laid up for a week or so. Because both of our families live within 10 seconds of us, we're having a 12:00pm Thanksgiving lunch with my family, then we have to go to Richard's family dinner that night around 5:00 pm. I'm not eating at all the next day!

So is anyone else making their Christmas cards this year? I'm thinking about it. I guess I'd better think quick since Christmas is in a month! I like making cards, but, sometimes I get stressed with too many ideas on a card and then I can't decide what's cuter. We'll see what happens.

It's a Small World after all!

Wow, I had a great surprise this past week! Okay, where to start with this story. Back in 1993, I went to Ireland with my Mom and in one of the wards we visited I met a friend named Claire. We became good friends. I also met a friend of hers named Stephen Keery who was not a member at the time. Okay? Then I went on my mission in 1997 and in one of my areas I was attending some sort of conference and guess who I bump into? Stephen Keery. He was a missionary there for the deaf program. So we chatted for a few minutes then we may have seen each other off and on throughout the mission. Then I didn't hear anything from him since then. Well, this email I just received this last week was from both of them finding out if it was really me and I found that they are married to each other. Okay, to back up also a little bit, when Richard and I lived in Rhode Island we met a guy in our ward named Spence Rose. He was a single guy going to the same law school Richard went to. Well, we had found out that he went to Ireland on his mission and when he was talking about someone he had baptized that went to my mission I asked him what his name was and he said Stephen Keery! Wow is it a small world or what?!

SO! I hope the story made sense. I am just so amazed at how you can find people or how people you knew at one time find you years later and to be reunited as friends! I love it! I think God helps us find those friends again for a reason.

Anyways, that's my happy story for today!

Getting Started

Okay, I've never done this before. I'm not even good at keeping a regular journal, so we'll see how well I do with this! I love reading friends blogs, so I thought I'd give this a try.

I hope everyone had a fun Halloween! I've always liked Halloween since it's during the fall and I enjoy the falltime activities that we do with the kids. The boys have been so excited for it for about a year! Ethan was Darth Vader, Preston was a knight, and Sara was a cute little pink fairy. I made sure she had something very 'girly' on since I can do that now. They looked so great. So between Ethan and Preston's school parties and trick-or-treating, they came home with lots of great tooth-decaying food. Yummy!

I'm so glad it's the weekend. Richard doesn't work Saturdays or Sundays, so we can hang out as a family. Although I'm hoping I can initiate him into helping me declutter the office side of Sara's room. Having only 3 bedrooms and 5 people living in this place gets a bit crowded and I hate clutter! We have stacks and stacks of papers and books on a table in Sara's room and it's driving me crazy! But, knowing our little family, we may just take off and go somewhere fun.

Happy weekend!