All Girls Weekend! (except Chance)

So while Jon went with his brothers Scott and Kenneth for a weekend of camping and fishing, I decided to head to South Carolina to be with my sisters-in-law and their beautiful kids! So we had fun just hanging out! Here are some pictures from the park.

Ashlyn enjoyed running around and trying to make new friends!

Jade is all smiles!


Brooke's first park experience was a hit!

Heather and happy Jade

Brooke and Susan on the slide for the first time

Chance was feeling surrounded by girls, so I decided to help him fit in! He was so good with the girls! I had to make sure he didn't jump on them at first, but he quickly understood that they were too little, and he followed Ashlyn everywhere!

My first (And most likely last) NASCAR experience

So, as a perk to working construction, Jon's building supplier gave us box seats to Bristol Motor Speedway for a race. Jon and I were interested to see what all the excitement was about! So, as instructed, we showed up to the race at 10am. We paid $40 to park in someone's driveway, and headed to the box. Once there, we realized we were the first people there. The race didnt start till 2 or something later like that ( I forget!) Jon and I played 'I spy' for a very long time to try and entertain ourselves. Finally the race started, but every time there was an accident, they drove slow for like 20 laps!!! I mean we understood why, but seriously we were at the racetrack for 9 hours by the time we left early. In a nutt shell, we werent too impressed. I think that if we had been with a group of friends it would have been more interesting, but the two of us couldnt keep eachother entertained for 9 hours! Here are some pictures of our experience. You can tell when we started to get bored... we took tons of funny pictures of us trying to look excited... I will give you the prettiest one!

ALREADY a test!

So from #2 of my last post, I am trying to improve my attitude. Just to test me, today turned out great! (And it is only half way over!) Here is my 'optimistic' version of today's test.

While driving around Knoxville on a beautifully cold/snowy day, looking at possible houses for Jon and I to purchase, my wonderful, new car started to act differently. Being the car-wiz that I am, I wondered, 'what could that exclamation mark that just showed up on my dash mean?' and kept driving. After hitting a perfectly sized pot hole in the marvelous back roads of the middle of no where, I realized something was really wrong. I pulled into a Baptist church parking lot and got out to see what was wrong. I was blessed with a flat tire! Lucky for me, my husband was over 2 hours away, so he was out of the picture in my adventure. Soon after I managed to get the jack and spare tire out of the trunk (I might add was a wonderful upper body workout) a mail man pulled into the parking look and parked where he could watch me. As I started jacking up the car, he proceeded to watch me. The entire time I was in the church parking lot this man sat there watching. I guess he was my guardian angel... to watch over me. I then started to try and get the hub cap off. A well dressed man then pulled into the parking lot, made eye contact with me and went about his business, but I didnt want him to get his clothes dirty anyway. So I turned back to the hub cap, and called my dad for some tips. As I was starting to get discouraged, a sweet elderly couple came by and the man made QUICK work of my tire. I greatly apprecated him for saving me from my struggle. It was the second person with a flat tire they had helped that day. Very sweet people.
Tire crisis mended, I headed toward a Nissan dealership to have them fix my car, when Chance (who was in the back seat the entire time) started to throw up. 3 rounds of throw up later (thankfully not 4), we pulled into our apartment and I rushed him out. I am so happy that our blanket we keep accross the back seats caught 98% of his mess! Now he is sleeping like a baby. I guess the moral of the story is: never feed your dog a tater tot....

General Conference

So this session of general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I decided for the first time that I was going to write down the impressions I felt during EACH talk. I have tried taking notes in the past and usually give up. But I am proud to say I made it through all sessions taking notes. Instead of writing down what the speaker said, I made an effort to write down what I felt I needed to hear. Here is a brief summary of what I have decided the Prophets of the Lord were saying to me:
1) Faith in Christ requires exactness, even in the small things. Therefore, I need to work harder to do the small things the Lord has asked of me (ex: personal scripture study, personal prayers) I felt that a reoccurring theme in all the talks was encouragement to do the small and simple things that we have been taught in primary. Pray, read scriptures, love one another. Along with this, I felt impressed that the Lord has blessed me greatly this past year. When Jon was laid off, it only took a month of stress for the Lord to bless us with a job in TN. I felt impressed to live more worthy of my blessings. It is not enough to be passive in the church, just attending my meetings and reading/praying with my husband are not enough to show my true devotion to the Savior. I want to live my life even closer to Heavenly Father by doing the small things I often forget to do. I have no excuse to neglect my spiritual nourishment.
2) Quinton L Cook stated that we get what we focus on consistently. That simple statement caused me to reflect on what I focus on. I want to strive to improve my attitude. Instead of feeling sorry for myself in this new town where I am slowly making new friends, I must find the good things happening. Instead of sitting around wishing Jon did not work such long hours, I need to focus on the good of his job. After all, in an economy where home building has all but stopped, we have a job! I need to stop letting myself get down. I hope that through focusing on the simple commandments of the Lord I will find this task easier. (I want to note that I dont sit around the house all day crying about how sad my life is, I just have thoughts of complaints) I want to be one of those really optimistic people and get rid of my pessimistic thoughts.
3) Temple attendance is greatly important for me. Sadly, my husband and I have not been to the temple since we left beautiful Rexburg. Oh how I miss having a temple 20 minutes away, or as it became our last semester, 5 minutes away. For those of you who still live so close, please go OFTEN for me. I wish I lived so close now. I would spend time in the temple alone now, since I still dont have a job. I miss the feeling the temple gives you. Jon and I have decided that we need to set a goal to make it to the temple much more often. This once a year attendance is just plain sad. Getting to the temple becomes so much harder to achieve when it is 3 or so hours away, and you actually have a full time job. But I should not complain about 3 hours, there are still saint in the church who travel for days to attend the temple, or those who never make it. I have been so blessed, I just need to make it more of a priority.
4) Finally, I was so touched by Jeffery R Holland's message that we will never be left alone or unaided. At times this past year I have felt so alone that it hurt, but I know that I never really was. My Heavenly Father always sent comfort in one form or another. Our Father lives and Loves us! I know that although I am imperfect, and working to be more deserving, that my Father loves me. I was so blessed by the uplifting messages of this session of General Conference! I hope you were too!