Blessed by long-distance friends

Nathan arrived home from work yesterday with a package for me. It had the cutest address label I had ever seen! (Forgot to take a picture before I cut into it, darn.)

Inside the package was this.

With this adorable card...

And inside the cute present was this! :)

A piggy bank for the new baby!

Debbie, I can't thank you enough. You're so sweet and kind and have really become a friend. I love working with you and I'm constantly amazed by your talents. Thanks for thinking of me and my little family. I hope I can somehow return the favor for you and yours. Ladybug hugs! :)

This is the life!

Be warned -- this will be a picture-heavy post! :)

Okay, so living in southern California certainly has its perks. For instance, my sister and her cute husband came down to visit us this past weekend just because they wanted to come to California. Yeah, that's nice. :) We were lucky enough to go out to Newport Beach and had a blast swimming, digging in the sand (mostly Eli), and building sand castles. Ali and Jed almost got eaten by some big waves, but they narrowly escaped. We had a great time with them here. Here are some pictures to share!

Love the fun houses on the edge of the sand. Man, someday....

Ali and Jed on the boardwalk. It was such a beautiful day!!



The last picture I got of the unfinished sand castle before "Hurricane Eli" got to it. LOL.



Eli likes to lay in the sand, as evidenced by the sand covered face. Typical. :)



Getting buried alive!

He was okay with being buried alive, but the best part for him was getting out and kicking all the sand into the air! :)



And yes, we did forget his swimsuit. It was a hectic morning! Luckily he's not afraid to show off his muscles and diaper.



Buddies.



These are my little boy's footprints!
I can't believe he's a little boy now and not my baby. He's growing up so fast.

I have to speak out

For anyone who lives in California (and for many of those who don't), you are probably aware of an important Proposition that will be voted on this November. It is called Proposition 8, and it is a state constitutional amendment that will specifically define marriage as between a man and a woman.

A little background: In 2000, the voters of California (by 61% in favor) passed an initiative defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. Four extremely liberal judges in San Fransisco recently ignored the will of the people and declared the initiative unconstitutional. Recently the California legislature authorized gay marriage. Gay marriages are currently being contracted in California. There is a new proposition on the November California ballot which would change the state's constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. The idea being that the courts can't declare the state constitution unconstitutional. (Although I wouldn't put it past them!!)

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I strongly believe that marriage is sacred, is ordained of God, and should only be between a man and a woman. I am not saying that same-sex couples should not be allowed to have a recognized legal union, but I do not believe it should be called marriage.

"Why should I care?" you may be asking yourself. Well, here are 7 consequences that will take place if this proposition is not passed:

1. Children in public schools will be taught that both traditional marriage and same-sex marriage are okay.

The California Education Code already requires that health education classes instruct children about marriage. (§51890) Therefore, if the definition of marriage is changed, children will be taught that marriage is a relation between any two adults. There will be serious clashes between the secular school system and the right of parents to teach their children their own values and beliefs.

2. Churches will be sued if they refuse to allow same-sex marriage ceremonies in their religious buildings that are open to the public. Ask whether your pastor, priest, minister, bishop, or rabbi is ready to perform such marriages in your chapels and sanctuaries.

3. Religious adoption agencies will be challenged by government agencies to give up their long-held right to place children only in homes with both a mother and a father. Catholic Charities in Boston has already closed its doors because of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

4. Married couples will no longer have preference with regards to adoptee placement in spite of the fact that almost all experts in this field agree that children are best raised in a home with both a mother and a father.

5. Religions that sponsor private schools and which provide housing for married students will be required to provide housing for same-sex couples, even if it runs counter to church doctrine, or lose tax exemptions and benefits.

6. Ministers who preach against same-sex marriages will be sued for hate speech and could be fined by the government. It has already happened in Canada , one of six countries that have legalized gay marriage.

7. It will cost you money. A change in the definition of marriage will bring a cascade of lawsuits. Even if courts eventually find in favor of a defender of traditional marriage (highly improbable given today's activist judges), think of the money – your money, your church contributions – that will have to be spent on legal fees.


If you're concerned and would like to see the passage of Proposition 8, many California churches are working to pass the Proposition. You can volunteer to help or donate to the cause even if you do not live in California, by going to www.ProtectMarriage.com.

I sincerely hope that this post does not offend anyone. That is not my intention. I know this is a sensitive issue for many, including members of the church. But I will stand by what I believe and make no excuses for it.

Wish us luck...

Today we're going to look at houses in a more affordable area of California. (Thank you mortgage crisis!!) Hopefully we'll find something amazing, although I'm not getting my hopes up for this house. I'd like to have the maid's quarters, but then we'd have to get a maid and I'd feel a little awkward sitting on the couch eating bonbons while she cleans up our house. Of course, I'd get used to it, but it would be an adjustment at first.

We'll let you know if we find anything worth putting an offer in on. Hopefully soon, because we HAVE to be in a new house by the time the baby gets here, and preferably before Thanksgiving. (So that everyone we know can come stay with us, of course!!)

Been busy...

Wow, it seems like it was just yesterday that I posted. Then I look, and it's been a WEEK and yesterday since I last posted. Crazy how time flies.

Well, in my defense, I have been busy. I went down South this weekend to attend the wedding of my bestest friend ever, Summer. :) It was a beautiful occasion and I had a lot of fun. I didn't take Eli or Nathan, so it was a pretty nice solo trip, although I did miss my guys a ton. I have to give a shout-out to my good friend Marisol for watching Eli for two days while Nathan worked. That was a lifesaving favor, and it was greatly appreciated. Next time you need anything, Marisol, let me know!! :)

Being in Louisiana and Mississippi was a lot of fun, and I could feel my southern accent yearning to break out again! I really couldn't help it -- blame it on the environment. I had such a great time seeing Summer and her family again. I hadn't seen her parents for almost 5 years! And seeing as how I was basically at her house every week during high school, that's saying something.

The humidity could have been lower, but I guess that's just the nature of the place. Luckily we didn't get hit with too much of the tropical storm. That was a blessing.

I'll leave you all with a couple of pictures that I've (gasp!) actually had the time to edit. There are more waiting in the wings that I'll post later. TTFN! (Ta-ta for now!)

Too much junk...

(not my actual room, but you get the idea. i'm too much of a pansy to show the world my real junk!)

Okay, I'm not sure if it's the pregnancy or just a mounting sense of enclosure, but I have really felt that lately we just have too much junk in this house! I keep looking around in preparation for a future move, thinking to myself, "I can't possibly move this much crap to a house. It's just too much for one family." And we only have one kid so far!

So who is the main culprit? While Nathan is a big keeper of junk like old computer boxes and clothes his mom gave him from his high school years, it's probably a lot more me than him. I admit, I do tend to keep a lot of stuff 'just in case'. I so totally get that from my mom. No question about it -- she is the ultimate pack rat. And I learned well. I think in the back of my mind, I secretly hope to need something a year from now and be able to pull it out of its hiding place in the garage and say, "Ha-ha! I do have this meaningless trinket that somehow I now need! Boo-ya!" But then when I truly think about it, I am not sure that I would know where to look for that meaningless trinket. It would probably take me more time to search for it than it would to go to the store and buy another one.

Grams, I know you are reading this thinking, "But that's a waste! Keep it because you never know when you'll need it!" But I have a sneaking suspicion that you may be where my mom got it from! :D

So over the next few weeks, I am vowing to go through my junk and start paring down. And I mean seriously paring down. I don't need boxes and boxes of old paper scrapbooking supplies that I literally haven't taken down from the top shelf since we moved in 2 years ago.

Wish me luck. As my mother's daughter (and my Grams' grand-daughter), I know I'm going to need it! :D

Some recent layouts...

While I've been hard at work editing my sister's wedding photos, I've also been doing a few new layouts. Here are a couple to share (and I'll share more once they've appeared in the Scrap Girls newsletter, so that they are fresh over there).


Oh, and here are some more cute wedding photos from Ali's big day. I just love antiquing (a photo, that is)! :)

Yesterday was Nathan and my four year anniversary! I can't believe that we've been married that long. (But of course, sometimes it feels like we've already been married my whole life.) I love looking back and remembering how we met, when we were dating, and all the fun things we did together. Here's a trip down memory lane, just for you babe. :)

WARNING: This post is very photo-heavy. Proceed at your own risk! :)

This is a great photo from Jared Laney's surprise birthday party. Nathan and I met at BYU -- we lived in the same apartment complex, and his best friend was dating my roommate. He would just come hang out at our apartment and play games with us and I'd cook him dinner. Sometimes Matt (his best friend) would come with him, but a lot of the time it was just Nathan. :) He was laying the groundwork, I suppose. LOL.

These two pictures are from our first 'real' date together. We went to a Sum 41 concert together. The best part about this was the way Nathan came about asking me to go to the concert. First, he just mentioned in passing that Sum 41 was going to be in Salt Lake and they were doing a concert. Then a couple of days later, he asked me if I would maybe like to go, if he was able to get tickets. I said that might be fun. So then a few days later, he said he had been able to get tickets and wanted to know if I still wanted to go. I said yes and we went to the concert and had a great time. Later I come to find out that he had already bought the tickets a few days before he even mentioned the whole thing to me in passing! He sure is a schemer, making sure his odds look good before going in and asking me out. :) To his credit, though, it wasn't exactly my style of music at the time. He was slowly introducing me to some punk stuff, and I had never been to a real mosh-pit included concert before, so he wanted to make sure that I would even want to go before he asked me. But that just made me laugh.

Here is me and my best friend Summer, at Newport Beach.
The summer after Nathan and my year of college together, we went back to our respective homes, me to Texas and he to California. That was only a few days after our concert date, and so I was bummed that we had to be apart for so long, because I wanted to see where this thing was going. But I settled for emails and was resigned that I wouldn't see him again until the fall.
About two weeks after I had been home, I got an email from Nathan's dad. (I had never met him before.) He essentially said that Nathan had mentioned my name to his parents and said that we had been hanging out together during the last few months. He hadn't even said that we had been dating or anything, but his dad knew that if he was even saying my name to them, that it was a bigger deal than Nathan was letting on. :) So Nathan's dad looked me up on the BYU website, found my email address, and sent me an email.
He invited me to come out to California for a visit with Nathan and his family, and he said that I could invite Summer to come with me so that I wasn't coming out by myself. He said he would take care of the flight and that we could go sight-seeing while we were there. But he also said that he didn't want to embarrass Nathan too soon, so it was to be a surprise visit! At first I was a mix of emotions, like shock, excitement, disbelief, worry. But I decided to go and have fun, and just see what happened.
So Summer and I went out to visit Nathan and he was SO surprised, it was hilarious.

Then this is a picture of us in downtown San Antonio. Later that summer, after I had visited Nathan, he and his old mission companion took a trip back to Oklahoma to visit. They just happened to stop by my house in San Antonio (yeah, it's not a direct way, but they were in the 'area') and stayed with us for a few days. I got to show them around San Antonio and Nathan got to meet my family. That was a lot of fun, but still a little awkward because we weren't officially dating or anything -- just getting there. :)

This is from a sunrise hike that we took to Stewart Falls once we were back at school. This is where we had our first kiss! :)

Me and Nathan and Homer. Good times.

Us in my apartment at Courtside.
We spent a lot of time with each other that school year, as things got better and more serious. :)

This picture is hilarious. It's me and Nathan on the couch with my creepy roommate that used to come sit on the couch with us while Nathan was over. I swear, she must have had a huge crush on Nathan and imagined that if she sat there long enough and bugged us, she could lure him away. It was weird at the time, but now it's just funny. :)

Ah, our Italian vacation! This was the summer after Courtside. Nathan's dad served his mission in Italy, so they took a trip out there to see it, and they invited me to go with the family. By the time we were here feeding the gross birds in Milan, we were engaged, but no one knew it yet. We planned some of the wedding in the back seat of our van traveling around Italy. Good memories. :)

Hanging out near St. Peter's Basilica. Look how young we both were! Crazy....

After a long hike up to Mt. Vesuvius. And I mean LONG! :) What a fun day.

Eating at a cafe in St. Peter's Square in Venice. One of my favorite cities in all of the world. I seriously could take a vacation there for three weeks and still see new things!

My favorite part of our entire trip -- taking a romantic gondola ride down the canals in Venice with my sweetheart. I've been so blessed.

A couple of months later, we were taking our engagement photos in San Antonio, gearing up for a wedding in less than 2 months! It was a crazy schedule, but I'm so glad we didn't wait. We knew it was right and went for it. Couldn't have asked for anything better.

At the Houston temple where I took out my endowments. Such a special day, to have Nathan and my parents there with me. That was overwhelming and amazing and life-changing.

The night before our wedding, our rehearsal dinner at PF Chang's in San Diego. I was so happy to have so many family members come down to the wedding. It was perfect weather and just a great place to get married.

The day my life changed forever.
Nathan and I were married in the San Diego temple on August 13, 2004.

And here's my main squeeze. :) Nathan has been such a blessing in my life. He is the perfect companion for me, he challenges me and supports me and is always trying to make my life better. I love him more than I knew possible and I'm so thankful for him. I am glad for these great 4 years, and am looking forward to the next 40 with him.

Love you babe! :)

More Wedding...

Been gone...

....because my little sister got married last week! :) I can't believe how beautiful she was and I'm so happy that she found her honest-to-goodness prince. She's one lucky lady and I think she knows it. (And he's one lucky prince, too, just so you know!)


Here's a preview. I just drove in tonight and I couldn't help myself. Had to set up the computer and look through the pictures that my friend (and amazing photographer) Jessica Kettle shot. There are some great ones!! Can't wait to post some more, once I get through with them.