President Hinckley

I have to admit that the passing of Pres. Hinckley has hit me harder than I expected it would. Even though I am old enough to remember prior prophets, for some reason I felt more emotionally attached to this one. In an effort to convey how I felt about such an incredible person whom I will dearly miss hearing speak, I decided to make my own video (I know there are millions of others who have done likewise) to help convey my feelings. I hope you enjoy...

"You are good. But it is not enough just to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for your presence. And the good that is in you must be spread to others..." ~ President Gordon B. Hinckley

Winter doldrums...

So here we are, headed into the last week of the first month of 2008. I've been bad about keeping up on this I know, but truly not much is going on. I think the time for winter is past and it sure would be nice to see a bit of grass outside :). I can't believe how much snow we've had this year (or at least the fact that it has never melted) and I must admit it would be nice to get outside for a bit. Not being a winter sports guru I'm getting tired of always being inside. Since there isn't much going on I thought I'd show off the last creative project I did (and actually finished since there are a lot of unfinished creative projects floating around my house). This year I decided to make a surprise scrapbook for my friend Nancy of her baby's life up to Christmas. Just for fun I thought I'd post some of the pages...and that way I don't keep rambling on here.

Merry Christmas!

Well...Christmas...what to say. This year I wasn't all that excited about the holiday. It's just not the same when you're a grown up without children. The excitement just isn't there like it is when you're young. Truth be told I was feeling a bit homesick for my youth this season. Therefore, I wasn't really looking forward to the holiday. I must admit that I really enjoyed the holiday none the less. It was predicted that a big snow storm was going to blow in so I decided I'd rather spend the night at my mom's than deal with slick roads late at night. Great idea, except the storm blew in just as I was loading up the car with presents. Oh if I'd only loaded the car when I first got home that afternoon like I thought I should, but no I decided to take a shower, blow dry my hair really nice, and then take four trips out to the car during a blizzard. Needless to say I was a bit damp by the time I got on the road. I also felt bad leaving the cats at home with no one to feed them for more than a day so I brought them along. Nothing like driving through a blizzard with a cat howling in fear in the back seat. We did nothing very special that night since it was just me, Jason, my mom, and John. We did our traditional gorge on sweets and movie watching. By around 1:30 am I was ready to turn in, shut off my light, crawled in bed and proceeded to try and sleep-except my boy cat (big baby that he is) sat outside my door and howled. After two hours of trying to ignore him I let him in and got no sleep because he was crawling all over me and pretty much wanted to sleep on my face. Finally, at 6:45 am he settled down and I got to doze off until the rest of the family got up around 9:00. Despite the sleep deprivation it was really fun to sleep over (just not with cats!). I loved lounging in PJ's and not eating breakfast until 11:00. We didn't even open presents until 1:00 that afternoon. Actually, we opened presents 3 times that day. First, with the four of us, later when Greg & Leigh and then Grandma & Grandpa, and finally when all of the step brothers came. It made for a very festive and jolly day. So, what I found is that there is something about spending the night that makes Christmas more Christmasy and makes it feel like the good ole' days.

Temple Square

This weekend we took the young women up to see the lights and tour around the square. After a stop for greasy pizza we were on the hunt for a parking space in downtown SLC (not such an easy feat at Christmas now that the two malls have been torn down). Finally we found success at the Salt Palace and meandered our way over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We were meeting up with the rest of the group, including the young men and the bishopric, who had all been unfortunately (at least for them) waiting for us for quite a while. They had much quicker success with the whole parking situation and since none of us were smart enough to exchange cell numbers we had been listed as MIA. Finally we were reunited and just in time to make the 3:00 showing of the Joseph Smith movie. I believe that this was my third time seeing the movie, and it has always been quite moving but was even more poignant for me this time. In the last week I've been bitten by the genealogy bug again and have spent endless hours searching the Internet for any personal history of a relative of mine. I've only been able to find one, for Martha Payne Jones (married to Daniel Stillwell Thomas) however it was a very moving account. They were living in Far West at the time the saints were driven out and her story of that time was emotional to read. To watch these events unfold in the movie struck me even deeper than before because I was envisioning what my own family had experienced. My great, great great grandfather was born just a few days after the family crossed the river and is listed as being born "in the woods". It was fun to watch the girls experience the message of the movie as well. It turned out that none of them had seen it before. Since it wasn't dark enough for the lights to be on we decided to take a tour of the Beehive house. I always enjoy going through historical homes, and it was doubly fun to see how excited some of the girls got about walking through rooms that Brigham Young had actually walked through and seeing the furniture and clothing they had worn. After an hour of walking through the lights we all split up and headed home. Getting out of downtown was easier said than done. The traffic was a nightmare with a concert starting at the Conference Center and the normal holiday bustle, not to mention all the police activity. We were headed down State St. and when we noticed all the police cars our Young Women's president jokingly said it must be a bomb. Well not five minutes later the bomb squad van turns left right in front of us. After we got past that area we were still on the search for hot chocolate, a lot harder than you think to find but I have now made a mental note that there is a 7-Eleven on the corner of 8 S and West Temple. It felt good to get out of all that mess!

Outside my window