On the Road Again!

For those who haven't heard yet, we're on the move again this summer! I can't believe how quickly our tour here in Korea has gone. Two years used to seem like a long time. And now we're nearly done!

So, we're headed to Washington DC in the summer. Drew will be working for WHCA (White House Communications Agency) and we're super excited! Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I hear my family think's it is extreamly funny that the most Republican branch of the family will be in DC with a Democratic president. Oh well. ;^)

I'm looking forward to getting back to Target, houses with backyards, and yes, even a WalMart will be a welcome sight! ;^) But most of all, we're happy to be closer to family! We will miss our friends here in Korea very much! But, one nice thing about the military is paths tend to cross often.

Washington DC, here we come!

Merry Christmas!

Here's some pictures of our fun Christmas day! Kami had a good time opening presents and enjoyed playing with them all today! Even AJ, who's been so sick with a cold the last few days managed a Christmas smile!

All in all it was a pretty fun day! I actually got to take a nap, and we all spent the entire day in our PJ's.

Kami, however, is in her room right now trying to go to bed, but is super sad. I just went in to ask her what was wrong and she's quite upset that Santa never came. I guess we never explained to her that he was going to come, but only while she was sleeping. Poor baby was probably waiting the whole day for him to make his grand entrance. So. So much for Santa.

In Your Face, October Cakepops!

These turned out so much better than the ones I created back in October, I nearly cried! I think some key factors were:

1. I wasn't trying to do anything fancy.

2. I made these by myself. (although I thoroughly enjoyed the company of my last two attempts!)

3. I got my mom to fill up a USPS Flat Rate box of Chocolate Almond Bark. I like working with that better than I like working with the melting wafers.

Anyway, YAY! Here they are (along with, of course my infamous CCC's (Chocolate Chip Cookies)!

Just a Snowman

This is kind of a random post. But, since I'm catching up, I thougt I'd throw this one in, too! These are some eat-able snowmen that Kami and I made one afternoon a few weeks ago. It was an activity that was on our advent calendar.

YWIE 2008

This year our YW chose the 'Young Women in Excellence' theme and carried out the program (I'm super big into giving the girls as much responsibility as I think they can handle, instead of me and my presidency carrying out an entire program on our own) So, the YW chose the theme "Following in Christs Footsteps". And they asked me to speak. I thought I'd share you all of you blog readers my notes from my talk. I also had a little slideshow going when I was talking about my favorite hike. Anyway, here you go!

Topic: How to draw closer to the Savior and follow in his footsteps. (5-10 minutes)

As a teenager in Southern Utah, I fell in love with hiking! I l fell in love with the beauty and majesty of the mountains around me. Hiking was something me and my friends would get together on a Saturday and do. Inside Zion’s National Park, there are a number of hikes that novice hikers could easily accomplish. The trails aren’t strenuous, the path was clearly marked and most of the hikes inside the park can be completed before lunch!

There are, however, many other hikes to be taken in the backcountry trails. These hikes are a little more advanced, the path isn’t always marked so clearly and takes from sunrise until sundown to complete. One of my favorites of these hikes is called The Subway.

This hike begins hiking over miles and miles of Sandstone, requires rappelling skills (or if you’re really dumb…jumping down into deep pothole waters) and hiking in water. This hike, as are the other backcountry hikes like it, are not marked at all. How did I know how to get where I was going?

I never went alone. I always had someone there who had hiked the trail before, many times over!

BEFORE we chose the path we want to take in this life, we need to look at where that path is taking us.

What are some of your goals in the next ten years?

Once we know where we want to go, we need to look at who is leading the hike! Preferably this would be someone who has been on the trail before…many times over! (or maybe once over, perfectly!)

Just as I would have never attempted a backcountry hike without a knowledgeable friend, I also would not chose a path in life without a Savior who knows the way.

My friends who hiked with me could always tell me approximately how much further we had to hike through the dull Sandstone, or when I would need to change shoes because we were coming up on some water and where the right pothole was that was deep enough to jump in and not break my leg!

Our Savior, too has provided some clearly marked paths to take. And we are reminded of how we are to stay on those paths each Sunday in Young Women’s as we repeat the Young Women’s Theme. And without going into detail about each of the Young Women values, there are two that I would like to talk a little about tonight. Our “bookend” values!

The first of these being….

Faith – Matthew 14: 22-31
Peter ‘tests’ Christ of who he really is.
Peter walks on water because of his faith that it is Christ who called to them.
Peter looses faith when he sees the wind and begins to sink.
Christ asks Peter, “wherefore didst thou doubt?”
Do we ‘test’ Christ? How?
When are times that we lose faith?
Faith in Jesus Christ is the first and largest step we take when following in Christ’s footsteps.

Just as I put my full trust in my hiking-savvy friends to get me home at the end of the day, we also need to put our full trust in our Savior. If we are to draw closer to Him, we need to begin to trust Him.

When we have faith in Christ and follow his example, pretty much everything else falls into place. The other Values are as follows:

Divine Nature = we are daughters of our Heavenly and have a divine inheritance
Individual Worth = we value that said inheritance and act as becoming daughters of our Heavenly Father
Knowledge = because of our divine heritage, we have so much to learn and seek for opportunities continually.
Choice and Accountability = we make choices every day and reap the consequences of those choices whether good or bad.
Good Works = we seek opportunities to serve others, knowing that by doing so, we are not only following the example of the Savior, but we are becoming like Him!
Integrity = we have the courage to stay on the path that the Savior has outlined for us.

And….Virtue. (Talk about the new value and bare testimony)

Here are some pictures from the night. The set-up and, of course some of our super cute girls!

YW Lesson 44 "Avoiding Crisis Living"

Okay, I'm catching up here! I meant to post this eons ago, but between sick kids, sick kids, and sick kids, I'm a little late at updating my YW lessons. I actually didn't even get to give this lesson because of, you guess it, sick kids! Thank goodness for the awesomness of counselors who'll step in at the last minute! Anyway, to see what I had prepared, go to Sugardoodle. It's all there!

Twilight Review

Okay! So, I finally was able to go and see 'Twilight' a few weeks ago (or was it only a week ago? I dunno, the last month has been a blur of coughing, sneezing, throwing up, runny noses and more! FUN!). The base theater held no hope for us here in Korea. So, I got a hold of a website to a movie theater not too far from here and found that it was playing there! So, I emailed out to the ladies at church to see if I had any takers to go with me. Turns out, there were quite a few! Yay! More obsessed fans! I LOVE it! So, here we are:

The company was FANTASTIC! The movie, however.....I dunno. I just. don't. know. I liked it, in it's own artistic right. There were things they added that I really liked (the humor, the baseball scene, the guy the played James and the chick that played Victoria). And of course things that I didn't like (the way it was filmed, the guy that played Edward, the way it was filmed, the guy that played Edward -I guess these two things that bothered me the most). I guess the problem is the same problem that most people experience in watching a book they love made into a movie. It just wasn't what I had imagined in my mind when I was reading it. (The two exceptions to this would be "Pride and Prejudice", the BBC version was right on with what I was envisioning, and "The Notebook", in which I actually liked the movie better than I liked the book).

But, like I said, the company was fantastic and it was all in all a super fun night! Everything from the subway ride, to almost getting lost, to figuring out what to do once we got to the movie theater. And where was AJ, you're asking yourself? Bonding at home with his dad, of course. And by bonding, I mean screaming his head off for about two hours! ;^) Thanks for letting me go anyway, Drew!

Oh yeah! And, thanks Mindy for the photos I took from your blog! ;^)

Hey Sailor!

This post is especially for my dad....just because I've been thinking about him a lot lately!
"No one has done more to prevent conflict - no one has made a greater sacrifice for the cause for Peace - than you, America's proud missile submarine family. You stand tall among our heroes of the Cold War." - General Colin Powell