Fun times with our neighbors

Last night we had an evening out with our next door neighbors. We always have a good time when we hang out with them. We are very lucky to have such close friends who live right next door!

Dinner at Red Lobster:



BYU basketball game:

Halftime entertainment

Historic Day

I was torn as to whether or not I wanted to watch the inauguration yesterday mainly because I needed to work all day, but the doctors at the clinic that I work for must have decided it was part of their civic duty to watch the inauguration so there was very little work to do yesterday. This gave me the opportunity to watch most of the day's festivities. No matter how you feel about President Obama, our country just partook in a very historical day! I am very proud to be an American where in a person's lifetime we can go from discriminating against blacks to electing them as our president!!! What a great country. Obama has a lot of challenges ahead of him and I'm very hopeful that he will succeed and get our country back on track.

Flashback Friday

I'm sitting here this morning with completely frozen toes that haven't thawed out in several days! I also have been reminded that it is Friday and I haven't done a Flashback Friday post in quite some time. So, with frozen toes I want to think of warmer days.

This post is about a trip we took to Arkansas in August of 2006. We went to visit my grandma. I'm getting used to the lack of humidity out here in Utah so when I visit places back home like Kansas and Arkansas I am quickly reminded of how humid it can get there. This particular trip was VERY hot and VERY humid!

As children my brother and I would float the river behind grandma's house every chance we could. In all of our marriage Dave hadn't had that same opportunity so on this particular trip we decided to get some tubes and float the river. It definitely isn't a fast paced river. We had an enjoyable time just relaxing and chatting about life!

My goofy husband

My mom heading down to the river with our doggies

Testing the water

On the final stretch of the trip

Yea, we made it!

Projects

For those of you that know me really well, it is no surprise to you that I've been working on a few projects! I love having projects to do especially when it involves making our house a nicer place to be. There are a few of you out there too that probably think I'm silly for putting this on my blog, but there isn't much else to talk about in our lives right now ; )

1st project: Computer Armoire

In preparation for making our second bedroom a baby's room, we decided that I needed to come up with another idea for my "office." We decided to purchase this computer armoire and make my "office" a part of the dining room. It isn't necessarily ideal, but when you only have two bedrooms you have to improvise!

2nd project: Kitchen Cabinet Knobs

We updated our cabinet knobs. The cabinets look totally different in these two pictures as well, but we didn't change the color of the cabinets, the photos were just taken at different times of the day. We replaced the outdated white knobs with the darker metal knobs. It is amazing how such a little change can make a huge difference!

3rd project: Dining Room Wall Hanging

I saw this idea at one of our local craft stores before Christmas. When Christmas was over I decided to use some of my Christmas money to purchase it, but when I went back to that store I realized it was gone. I decided that I could probably re-create it myself. I purchased the metal rod and the wooden letters. I painted the letters black and Dave helped me distress them. I originally wanted the wall hanging to say "Family," but the craft store was out of some of the letters so we decided to do our last name instead. I've blurred out the actual letters for safety reasons. I'm not 100% convinced that I like it with our last name, but it will work for now.

Great idea!

My sister-in-law came up with a brilliant idea on how to help us find our baby! Check out her blog to see what she did. If you click on the picture of us on her blog it links you to our blog. We definitely appreciate her willingness to help us spread the word that we want to adopt!

If you feel so inclined to help us out in this small way as well, we will be eternally grateful! I am more than happy to supply a picture of us and anything else you might need...just let me know!

Also, other ways you could help us spread the word include:

• If you are LDS, have it announced in Relief Society/Priesthood that we want to adopt.
• Put our information in your church bulletin/program.
• Talk to anyone and everyone you know about us!!!

I'm sure there are a million other ways to help us spread the word and we do appreciate anything you might come up with! We love you all and appreciate all of your actions, thoughts and prayers in our behalf to help us complete our family!!!

13"

It has been snowing off and on for the past two days. On the news last night they reported that Provo has received 13" of new snow during this storm. We already had several inches of snow on the ground from storms that came through right before Christmas, so needless to say we are buried in snow!

Even though we have lived in Utah for the last three years, I still find myself in awe when I see this much snow. Growing up in Kansas never presented me the opportunity to see more than an inch or two of snow on the ground. Most of the time we got ice storms instead.

I love how the snow makes everything pretty. I also love that I have a job that I do from home so I don't have to get out in it! I'm a chicken when it comes to driving on bad roads and Dave will attest to that!!!

The rest of our trip...

We are back at home now enjoying the fact that we are home, but glad we got to see some family and friends in Kansas for Christmas this year! We had a very enjoyable trip and are appreciative to those who made our trip so nice!

We decided to leave on New Year's Eve Day and drove part-way to Limon, Colorado. We spent New Year's Eve in a very lovely hotel (wish you could hear my sarcasm). You definitely get what you pay for in that department!!! Because we had a long day of driving ahead of us on New Year's Day we decided to go to bed early and not ring in the new year at midnight. We were in bed by 10:30. Party poopers, I know! We got home around 5 p.m. on New Year's Day and spent the rest of the evening recovering from being in the car for two days.

Since arriving home we've done a lot of relaxing, unpacking, organizing/cleaning, shopping, etc. Dave is currently at the BYU/Wake Forest basketball game and I'm playing with my new Adobe Photoshop program I got from Dave for Christmas!!! It is hard to believe that we have to go back to "real" life soon.

Below are a few final pictures from our trip. We got to see a few of my friends (didn't take pictures) and spent some more time with the "girls."

Dave & Keaghan playing with his new cell phone

Keaghan

Laiken

Holly & Keaghan

Dave & Laiken

Holly & Laiken

We are both very excited for 2009 and hope it brings many wonderful things! I'm of course hoping 2009 brings us a BABY...we'll see what happens!

We wish you all the best in the new year as well!