Looking for the Good

The First Presidency Message this month by President Uchdorf is called "Looking for the Good".


Confession: I am not very good at this.

Truth: Nathan does this naturally and I am so lucky to have him as my sensei in this area.

I don't necessarily look for the negative in others I just tend to dwell on it in situations. For example: Last weekend I forgot my purse and our hiking backpack at my parents' house. I saw this as a terrible blow to my perfect day that I had planned. Nathan saw this as an opportunity to spend that time with our families and go on a different hike I had wanted to do.

Another example: When our insurance was being awful and denying my insurance claim, I said this is unfair I am doing everything right. I fulfill my calling, go to the temple, read my scriptures...I would like to see some of those promised blessings now please and not have to deal with this. Nathan said that it was an opportunity to exercise faith and learn from our trials. (I know gag, right. At the time I wanted to hit him and say na-uh, but let's face it he was right...Don't tell him I said that!)

In short, read your Ensign from this month and do it. We can all work on it together. Thanks for being such a great example of this and helping coach me on my way to the glass half full, Nathan.

Here's another example, just for kicks and cause I'm sad rebels lost the Conference Championships. I was upset we were late. Nathan was grateful we had free tickets and got to be together on a fun date and that my sisters were able to come too.

I think optimism and gratitude are closely linked. Maybe if I listened to President Monson more closely last conference I would be a pro at this by now...baby steps.

Sunrise Sunset

The weather here is beautiful and yesterday I wanted to take advantage of it by going hiking at Red Rock before all the waterfalls dry up. Well, it didn't quite work out as I left our hiking pack with all the food and water and park pass all at my parents' house. Nathan was wonderful to forgive my silliness and instead we got to visit his grandparents who were in town and we took Jimmy and Kristi up on Surise Mountain behind their house to watch the sunset. It was beautiful and those little kids were troopers. Hopefully sometime soon we will go all the way to the top (probably not with Jimmy though) since Nathan has never hiked it.

Christmas Recap

A quick update on our lives for December...
Book club reunion: Nathan and I were both part of what started out as a C.S. Lewis book club then morphed into an any author book club and then into a taste identifying Olympics.  Basically we get together to try to identify different flavors... so far we have done jelly beans and capri suns. This time we did all 41 flavors of jelly beans. We were so sick by the time we were done but it sure was fun. We found out the taste buds are hereditary since the Johnson sisters dominated. Megan does not participate but administers the jelly beans and establishes rules and how things will go down. Her official title is IOC (International Olympic Committee).

 All 41 flavors- carefully sorted

Before we got sick from over-consumption of processed sugars.

Sleeping under the Christmas Tree: My family has a tradition of sleeping in sleeping bags under the decorated tree. Nathan and I continued the tradition, but for only one night... we sleep much better on a mattress. Maybe next year I will just drag it out under the tree. Then I can sleep there all December.

Please note my fuzzy red monster feet slippers that made the picture.

Grandma's house: We drove up to Hyrum (near Logan, UT) the Wednesday before Christmas to be with my family and my Grandma Keeley and stayed until Christmas day. We went to the Logan temple with my parents, toured Pepperidge Farm, ate goldfish crackers at our annual Christmas tea party, watched all 4 hours of BBC's Emma (Nathan watched with me and my sisters...what a great husband!), and visited temple square when it was totally empty. You want temple square to yourself, go Christmas morning. We had a wonderful time even though we got rain that shooed away our white Christmas.

 Here we are in front of the rainy Logan temple. 

 Temple Square, fun but cold and empty.

First Christmas: We got home before my parents, so Nathan and I exchanged gifts and had our own little dinner before getting in our PJs and going to my parents' to have Christmas morning, at night. I am always more excited for the gifts I get people than the gifts I get so I had my family open all their presents from us first cause I just couldn't wait any longer. I think we did a pretty good job getting everyone just what they wanted.  Jimmy was especially excited for his remote control truck (almost as excited was Dad was for Jimmy to get it).  We had fun, and went home for a nice night back at home.  Sunday we went over and had Christmas round two with Nathans family.  We got to visit with family and play games.

Nathan in his Christmas jammies, well with his Christmas jammies.

My sassy new sweater and shoes to boot.

Jimmy and his Jeep

Merry Christmas!

This Monday, for FHE, we put up a little holiday cheer in our house. Last year we went after-Christmas shopping and bought a tree and all the trimmings (even though we weren't even engaged yet). I love this time of year and the feelings that accompany the season.

We got out our Amy Grant Christmas album, which is a favorite in my family, and put up all of our nativities and our tree. I have about 7 different nativities that I have collected. They are my favorite part of decorating. They help focus on the true reason for the season. I am also really excited about how our tree turned out. It looks like it is straight out of a magazine and we did it all for less than $20 (tree not included). I've decided that I will need two different trees. One to be gorgeous and awe-inspiring and another to be totally hands-on and sentimental with homemade ornaments and ones that we have collected through the years.

I am especially proud that we have nearly all of our shopping done so we can really enjoy this season. Even though Nathan hates it when I drag him out for hours of torture, we have been able to find some great gifts and won't have to do it all last minute. I love giving gifts, especially when you find just the right thing that you know that person will just love. I am really excited for my parents to open their gift. They are the hardest people ever to shop for and I think we nailed it. My siblings are super jealous that we have them done already.

But the thing I am most excited for is the annual trip to Grandma Keeley's. I love to be up with family and leave the "real world" behind to be transported to the magical kingdom of Grandma's house. I love everything about it. I love the tradition. I love Grandma's tree. I love the snow. I love the hustle and bustle of downtown Logan with its old-timey shop fronts and holiday decorations. I love that this year I get to share it with Nathan. I will miss that we can't go up for the whole week, but I guess that is part of growing up and having responsibilities.

Our beautiful tree

 Sleepy and happy little decorating elves

 Some of our nativities, we have a bookshelf in the living room and each shelf got a few. Not all are pictured.
My wisemen are even coming from the East, historical accuracy is key (ignore that they didn't come at the same time as the shephards!)

 Counting down till Christmas

 Nathan's awesome Playmobile Nativity set, complete with treasure chests that really open for the wise men.

 The stockings were hung by the furnace with care...

 Nathan decorated our mini-tree for our office. Thanks honey.

 Ready to kick the season off with the First Presidency Christmas devotional tonight.

We wish you a merry Christmas!

It's a Jolly Holiday Alright.

So, for Halloween this year Julie and I decided to be procrastinators (not like it was it our costume, more like a lifestyle) and we didn't decide on a costume until around the 29th of October.  We were originally going to go as the "I Dream of Jeanie" couple, but that didn't seem to quite work out.  We went to Star Costume, the store my mom works at, to see if we could make our idea work with some supplementary aids. 

Julie has never been to Star, and I have told her that it is huge and that they have tons of costumes.  She was a little worried that we would be depriving the store of a costume that it could potentially rent or sell.  I told her that we could just ask my mom what costumes they have left, there is no way they will rent them all.  I don't know if Julie thought that I was exaggerating or what, but when we got to the store and went in the back to look at rentals, she was blown away.

Star has a HUGE selection of rentals, and I'm talking like twelve 20 foot rows with a top and bottom rack.  It was cute to see Julie's reaction.  We could be literally anything we wanted for Halloween.  The Jeanie costumes they had didn't really fit Julie so we looked around to see what else they had.  We considered Power Rangers, Neo and Trinity from the Matrix, and Scarlet and Rhett from Gone with the Wind.  We weren't really feeling any of these other ideas until my mom suggested Mary Poppins and Bert.  As you can see, the results were pretty good.

Personally, I think Julie was born to be Mary, "practically perfect in every way" you know.  We even got some of Julies siblings in on the deal.  We have Jimmy, who thought that that he was a cowboy, and Kristi as the Banks children, and Linda as Mrs. Banks.  We got a lot of compliments and we had a lot of fun at the trunk or treat.

You've Got Mail

So I love getting the mail, not necessarily bills but if that comes with it so be it. I especially love getting the mail on Tuesdays because it's ad day. Nathan likes to laugh at my love of ads, but getting a great deal on stuff you need just makes my day.

Last night we walked to the mailbox together to get the most wonderful bunch of mail ever!

Let me break it down for you:
1. The ads were there in all their glorious splendor. Sometimes the mailman doesn't bring them until Wednesday and then I miss out on all of the extra wonderful specials that happen on Wednesdays at the grocery store on the way home from work, which saddens me, but that was not the case this time. Thank you Mr, Postman.
2. Not only were the ads there, but the coupons were as well. Again sometimes they don't make it here on time or at all.
3. No bills. Love it when that happens. Nothing to dampen my mail mojo.
4. The conference Ensign is here!!! I was just complaining about how we had not received ours and here it was waiting for me in the mail. I can't wait to re-read the wonderful messages that were shared last conference.
5. BEST OF ALL...Anthem reversed their denial of the claims for my surgery! We have been praying about this for weeks. I may have developed an ulcer for stressing over it and now I can sleep at night. I think this is up there with when I got my AP test results and scored a 5 on my Calculus test. There are not many mail moments that rank quite that high.

To all of you who prayed and helped us out during this stressful time. Thank you!

I can't wait to see what the mailbox has in store for me tonight.