Gratitude Week Part 4

This will be the last post in my series of gratitude post. Samuel and I were both so grateful this past week for a visit from the family. It was such a fun Thanksgiving break as we had lots of quality time with the family. Today the apartment seemed so quiet without everyone here and we both commented on how the day after everyone leaves is so sad. It was a lot of fun for us to host everyone at our place even though it is pretty small. We were grateful that people were willing to hang out in our small apartment and cook dinner in our small kitchen. It was great to have Brad, Jet, and their boys Hyrum and Benson spend the nights in our apartment and get even more time with them! We kept busy during the week with hiking the Y, cooking lots of food, playing ultimate frisbee, shopping, playing games, Skyping with Greg and Kristen, and having lots of laughs and fun moments. We are sad it is over because we aren't sure yet when the next time we will see them will be, but we are grateful for all the memories we made. And also, for the leftovers they left in our fridge :).

Gratitude Week Part 3

I know that I have not been consistent in writing my gratitude blog posts, but I have been so busy this week having fun with my family that has been in town(which I am grateful for!). So I want to finish it out with a couple other posts today.

I am grateful for the kids in my family and all the joy that they bring. I have two awesome nephews from Brad and Jet...

... and another one on the way from Greg and Kristen(they are not finding out whether it is a boy or a girl ahead of time)

Kids bring such a unique dimension to the family and they are so fun to have around! Samuel and I both really enjoyed spending time with the Hyrum and Benson this week. It was neat to have them staying at our apartment with us and getting to spend even more time with them. We had fun with them while feeding the ducks, hiking "Y" mountain, playing cars, playing "My Raff" with Hyrum's stuffed giraffe and so much more. And we are very excited to meet Greg and Kristen's baby next year and to have a great addition to the family!

Gratitude Week Part 2

Another thing that I have been especially grateful for recently is my family-in-law. I first met Samuel's parents last Thanksgiving when I went home with him. Even before I met them, Samuel's parents immediatly welcomed me in to the family and made me feel cared about. And they have only continued to make me feel welcome and special since that first trip. It could have been easy to have blended in with the two other daughter-in-laws that joined their family within months before and after me, but I think that they are very good at making each individual person feel unique and special in their family. I am also very grateful to know all of Samuel's siblings. This past summer was a lot of fun with all of the many things we got to do with his siblings who lived in town. I really got to know them all personally and we had a lot of good times. Going back to Seattle and getting to spend time with the siblings in Washington has been great as well. They all have something unique and great that they add to a really wonderful family. With the holiday season approaching I am especially grateful for this since we will always be switching off which family we spend the holidays with. Even when I am not spending it with the family I grew up with, I still know that it will be great because being with them feels like being with family.

Gratitude Week Part 1

In this week leading up to Thanksgiving I want to take some time to write about some things that I am grateful for. There are SO many things I could talk about, but I will just be highlighting a few.

In the past few years, months, and especially this semester, I have been especially grateful for my parents. It seems that the more I learn about parenting and other people's experiences, the more I realize how good of a job my parents did at the world's hardest job. I feel bad for my immature times when I would notice their faults despite how few they had. I have been so grateful for these past months when my parents have been able to come visit us and spend time with us, including this week for Thanksgiving! I am also grateful for how openly they have accepted Samuel into our family and how they have made it such an easy transition. I have also realized that I am becoming more and more like my mom as I go through life's stages and if I become anywhere near as good a mom as her I will be happy!

Holidays

I have always liked celebrating holidays. In middle school I used to try to decorate my bedroom for each of the holidays, but there is only so much you can do in a little bedroom. But now that I am married and we have a place of our own, it is much easier and much more fun! The day after my birthday I came home from work to find that Samuel had surprised me by decorating the whole front room with Halloween decorations. He did a very good job and was very thorough. It is really hard to get a picture of the whole apartment, but here are my attempts:





Kylie had given me the trick-or-treat plaque in the picture above for my birthday so it was cool that Samuel could find a home for it so quickly. It has been a lot of fun to have the decorations up for the couple weeks leading up to Halloween.

Last week we had hot chocolate and carved jack-o-lanterns with our friends and neighbors Pete and Dani and it was a lot of fun.

Our pumpkins are all on the steps in front of our apartment in a nice little pumpkin family.

Last night we had a Halloween party and had some of our friends and family over. These are the Halloween treats I made:

Apples for bobbing, candy bowl, orange drink, ghost cookies, and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins

We have been getting a lot of good use out of the orange dishes my mom bought for the wedding. And the cake platter/punch bowl that Becky gave us as well:

Samuel really wanted to have an apple bobbing contest and so we did and it was fun. The girls did a lot better than the boys though :)








We have done some other things to celebrate Halloween as well, like making Halloween crafts at a relief society activity, making Halloween cookies and other treats, etc. It has been fun and I am excited for all the other holidays coming up as well. Especially Christmas! I love Christmas season!! And it is definitely the most fun to decorate for. We are hoping to find a little mini Christmas tree we can put up if they aren't too expensive. And I already have ideas for other decorations swimming around in my head. I love nativity scenes, especially seeing ones from around the world, so it will be fun to, some day in the future, have some of those in our house. We have also already been talking about the different Christmas treats we could make. I have a tendency to plan way ahead when I am excited about something so I have had ideas for Christmas for a long time. But now we aren't very far away at all and stores are starting to put Christmas stuff up already. Yeah!! I love all the aspects of Christmas. SO EXCITED!!

Samuel's Fashion Sense

Since Samuel is such a "manly man" who is into all things masculine and would be very offended to be told he is not a man, I was surprised to find that he actually has quite a few opinions about women's fashion... and good ones too. I never really liked shoe shopping that much until I met Samuel. A little while back I let Samuel go shoe shopping with me and pick out a pair of high heels for me. These are the ones I came home with:

They might not look like it in the picture, but they were higher than any other pair of high heels I owned. Surprisingly though, they were not uncomfortable and I really like them.

This summer I said something to Samuel while we were in a store about how I thought I might want to get a purse for my birthday or Christmas since I have only ever had the small ones that hold nothing more than my wallet, and the tote bag I had used for a long time had worn out with a hole in the side. Instead of waiting until later Samuel took us over to the purse section right then and proceeded to pick out different purses while others he pointed out as "too old woman like" or "not fashionable." We narrowed it down to two and then this was the one we picked out:

I didn't think I would ever own an alligator skin type purse, but I actually really like it and it has gotten a lot of good use.

Another time that we were walking through the mall Samuel spotted these teal high heels through the window:

I had looked all over for teal shoes for the our wedding but I hadn't found any until now. They were not very expensive and so Samuel said "We have to get them" (Yes, his words, not mine :) ). There was a buy one get one 50% off sale on the high heels and so we also got these black high heels:


It's not very often that we buy shoes, clothes, etc with our limited budget but it has been fun to see a different side of manly Samuel who has a good fashion sense :).

Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?

Ten years ago today I was in fifth grade and first heard about the terrorist attacks from my classmates. Several of them were talking about how it was probably the Japanese getting us back for World War II. They were also talking about how we might be at risk because we had the national laboratory in our town. I remember that one of my good friends was genuinely terrified for her dad's safety when he returned to work. School was closed early and all the students were sent home. It was then that my parents explained that it had nothing to do with Japan and I learned about a part of the world that I don't think I had ever heard of before, but would hear about for years to come as the war on terror began. For the rest of the day and for days to come we were tuned in to the news and listening to all the developments. There were a lot of stories and personal accounts told. For some reason the story that I most remember is of a little girl who was with her parent on the way to one of the World Trade Centers but was hungry and wanted to stop for a sandwich. For that reason they were not in the tower when it was hit. I remember when I heard that story that my dad told me that the Lord touches the hearts of the little children.

Despite all the awful things that were happening with 9/11 and all of the deaths, missing people, and split up families, the stories that I remember most are the ones of the simple, heroic things that ordinary people did during this tragic time. I remember stories of people on the airplanes who risked their life to try to stop the hijackers. I remember stories of people who helped others, including the handicapped, down the staircases in front of them even though it meant they might not get out in time, instead of pushing their way to the front in a fight for survival. I remember stories of firefighters and police officers sacrificing their lives to try to save others. I think that in the world now there is a lot of talk of the evil of human nature and of all the cruel or selfish things people do. But in a crisis like 9/11 where evil acts are very apparent, there is also seen the good of humanity through the selfless acts of countless people. In an intense crisis fueled by fear, where no one would have blamed a person of thinking of only saving themselves, people stopped and thought of others. They didn't gain recognition or praise for their acts and in many cases lost their life, but they still did it.

The United States has changed so much since that fateful day 10 years ago. Security measures have forever changed, especially at the airport, but I think it has made America more patriotic and unified as well. It is crazy to think that kids growing up now never experienced 9/11, but they are definitely living with the effects of it. It is going to be something that will never be forgotten and that my kids will learn about in history textbooks. It is kind of crazy to think that I experienced it.

Here is a video dedicated to the heroes and victims of 9/11 with the song by Alan Jackson that I like called "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?"