Faith and Infertility

I have finally started taking advantage of my time commuting. I burned the 2011 April Ensign on CD and started listening this morning. As I was listen the article Faith and Infertility came on. It is a touching account of 4 couples and their experiences with infertility.
I suggest that everyone check it out, those that are struggling with infertility but also those that are not but perhaps have friends that are.
Also, here is a link to our story of trying to conceive. I think that there is a lot to learn from other people's experiences. Even if you are not struggling to conceive, or have never had issues conceiving, reading the Ensign article can perhaps give you some new insight into other's struggles and their perspectives. Perhaps it might also enhance your relationship with your spouse and children.

New Year’s Eve 2009

New Year’s Eve is always a tough holiday for me. Mostly because I never know of a good way to celebrate it, or maybe it’s just that nothing I do to celebrate it ever feel monumental enough. But I know I do enjoy hanging out with friends, so that’s a good way to start the year! This year we had the Nicolich clan, MacPherson bunch, and both boy and girl Chad Poole. We of course played Rock Band and did fireworks. Chad Poole is a maniac with the bottle rockets and the MacPherson’s like to do silly string.


Joe is such a rock star and Emily is super background dancer!


This picture is awesome because Emily is always this excited about everything, I love it!


Time to prepare for fireworks!

This is the moon behind smoke from the fireworks!


Emily is such a good sport!

Joe lights the fountains for me, I like those the best.


The silly string aftermath!

And then of course another round of Rock Band!

Christmas in Utah Part 5

Wednesday afternoon Joe and I took some time to visit my friends at Goldman Sachs. I had been talking with my old manager since I left, and he had been filling me in on all the changes with the office. I had to see what was happening there, but it turned out to be strange! The office is now huge, so many more new people and so much movement between teams. It was fun to see a few familiar faces though, I totally miss my friends there! Steven, his wife, and Joe and I hit up Training Table for lunch (it was on our list). It was fun to catch up with Steven and Jan, and of course, the cheese fries and special sauce totally hit the spot!
That evening Joe and I went to our friend Adam Morgan’s house for some dinner and games. We were lucky enough to coordinate and have Josh and Crystal Souter come too! Melissa was so sweet to make us all a fantastic dinner.


Me and Crystal are hanging out

Adam

Kids!
So whenever Joe gets together with Adam and Josh, craziness always ensues. If you remember last year when we stopped by Adam’s house, this is what Joe did to say hello:
This year Adam had to show us his birthday presents, a pogo stick and a unicycle. Joe was in heaven. It was pretty scary, but they had a fun time trying it out. I wasn’t terribly adventurous though.








I tried, barely, it was super scary!
Adam has a ridiculous collection of strategy games. Joe would like to one day own this many games!


Adam is also lucky enough to have a little climbing wall in his garage! One day we’ll have a party house too!

It was way fun to hang out with the Morgan’s and Souter’s!

Thanksgiving (8 months late!)

Being in Georgia means that we don't get to be around our family a lot during holidays. So far we've only been home for Christmas. Luckily we have wonderful friends here, and we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with one of the families that we definitely love. Even though Thanksgiving isn't totally their holiday :) The Bassett's moved to Georgia from South Africa a year ago (at the time) and it was great to share the Thanksgiving meal with them. Jann cooked a ton of awesome food, including a fantastic turkey and the traditional string beans and crispy onions. It was fun to be with friends for sure! Joe and I provided a few items, like sparkling cider and vanilla sodas (Joe's specialty). We also brought some pre-feast snacks of pull apart bread! Unfortunately, I didn't get any shots of all of stuffing our faces!

that's bacon that has been cooking on the turkey!

Later that night Joe and I thought it would be fun to have a pie social. We invited our friends over to eat some of our pies. Unfortunately, we didn't factor in the fact that most people would be spending the day with their families :) Luckily, Bill and Emily came over with their cute girls, and even brought Bill's dad and step-mom. It was fun to take it easy, eat some treats, and check out the Black Friday ads. Alice totally got into it!

apple, pumpkin, pecan, and little pumpkin pies!

inspired by: http://www.bakerella.com/pumpkin-pie-bites/

It was a great holiday, full of fun and friends and good food!

Camping?

Joe and I went camping! I know, we really aren't campers, and I got a lot of responses like "But you don't camp..." when I said we were going camping (September 26 & 27).

We drove up after work on Friday, unfortunately we got up there after dark. Luckily our friends Bob and Jason helped us set up our tent (Bob and his family have our same tent!) Once we were set up and moved all of our stuff into the tent, we all sat around the camp fire to get the camping started. Of course we had smores, which are always fun.

Saturday morning we all got up and had pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Luckily the Lunt's and MacPherson's have camping stoves, so that cooking was easier.

Bob, Diana, & Chad
The MacPherson's tent and ours behind itThe Lunt's trifecta tent

The Poole's tent

After breakfast we decided it would be fun to go the the Amicalola Falls State Park (http://www.gastateparks.org/info/amicalola/) and check out the water fall, apparently it's the tallest East of the Mississippi River! Of course, we had to get there first, and Google Maps has a hard time with Georgia roads. We all got a little lost, but then Chad Poole used his trusty iPhone and GPS'd us there. The state park was really nice. We walked along a path that took us to the ridiculous staircase up to the top of the falls, it was something over 400 steps to get there AND you had to walk back down the stairs to finish out the trail. It was worth the climb, even though I paid for it later in weird muscles I didn't know I had. The wilderness in Georgia is definitely different than in Utah (obviously), they each offer their own awesomeness. I'm glad we were able to see some of it.

After the state park visit, some of us needed to go into town, Dahlonega, and get some groceries and things. We drove through their totally cute downtown/main street area (http://www.dahlonega.org/index.php/visitors/visitors.html) there's something to be said for smallish towns.

When we got back to the campsite we had some awesome slaw dogs, Bob made some homemade slaw that was awesome, even Joe enjoyed it. Then Bill, Emily & Sally showed up to hang out for the evening (Emily was basically 9 months pregnant and didn't want to sleep on the ground). The kids played around in the creek along our campsite while the boys did manly things, like splitting wood. Really though, it was scary to watch, so I'm glad Joe didn't do it very long.
For dinner Saturday night, we all brought steak and potatoes! I have never done steak on an open fire grill. Both turned out awesome. Joe totally enjoyed the steak, my was a little under done (cause I'm a woos), but it all tasted good. After we did more smores, fire toasted marshmallows are so good.

Everything turned out well, even though sleeping wasn't that awesome. Next time we'll bring some sort of air mattress or padding. I can't sleep on the ground like I used to at girl's camp. I was also a little freaked out by all the spiders and bugs. All the creepy crawly things in Georgia seem way bigger than in Utah, even the daddy long legs. Perhaps we'll go camping a few times next year, and maybe when we return to Utah, we'll see if we have become adventurers.