Happy Valentine's Day!

This is my valentine! :)




 

the week without work

It's true, I didn't work one day this week. I know that sounds really nice and in some ways it was, but in other ways it kind of wasn't.

It started Friday. Our kind friends invited us to McCall to their parent's sweet cabin. We rushed home from school and work and 15 minutes later they picked us up and we were on our way. Relaxing away from home is always nice. Saturday evening my throat started to hurt. Oh no! I am with a friends and their family members and I am sick. I don't want to get anyone sick, so I try to be extra sanitary. The weekend was still very fun... We played lots of Strut, Wizards, and other card games. We hot-tubbed, slept in, watched TV, played pool, and lounged around. Our friend's car couldn't make it up the driveway when we arrived and when we headed down to church on Sunday we slid off the road and got stuck. After we headed back to Moscow we had to go back because we forgot to turn down the heat. Good times! We really did have a fun time and I hope I didn't infect anyone!

MONDAY

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

No school

I am SO glad we had this day off because I woke up feeling awful. My throat continued to get worse, I now had a fever, headache, chills, and congestion. Darn viruses! It was so nice to have my sweet husband home with me to help take care of me. He made me herbal tea and soup. I didn't feel any better that night, so I put in for a substitute and whipped up some quick sub plans and emailed them to my supervisors. 

TUESDAY

Sick Day

David went to school. I stayed in bed. I drank massive amounts of herbal tea. I thought my fever was gone, but then David arrived and crushed those hopes by being realistic with me. I guess it was just wishful thinking. Who like being cooped up in the house?!

WEDNESDAY

Sick Day

Still feeling like death I stayed home again. Luckily for the kids they got the same substitute. This is the day our winter storm started going crazy! As I watched the snow continuously fall ALL day, I was shocked that school was still in session and nervous about the roads. Later that evening we were pleased to find out that it was a SNOW DAY(!!) for David and me on Thursday! My voice was basically nonexistent at this point.

 SNOW!

 Out our back door

 Out the front

 Measuring approximately 13.5 inches

THURSDAY

Snow Day

Although I wasn't feeling fabulous, it made me feel better to have David home with me. My fever was gone and we even got to run a couple of errands! Except the roads were crazy. You'd think that by 2011 a northern Idaho town would have figured out how to plow roads, but you'd be wrong... Part way through our errand run, the ice on the top of our car roof cracked and slid down onto our windshield. It was a lot of ice and I couldn't see anything. David kept driving, but I was nervous so I made him pull over. Bad idea! He cleaned it off quickly, but we were stuck. David dug around the tires with our scraper for quite some time before this nice lady and her two kids stopped and gave us a push. It was so nice! It took probably five tries to get up the hill to our house after that...

 It was snowing still when we got home. David quickly ran in to cut up and get all of our newly purchased meat in the freezer. I decided to chop away at all of the ice on our long, wooden staircase up to our doorstep with the snow shovel. I got it all off and cleared away, came inside, took off my coat and boots, and noticed my hands were REALLY red. I thought it unusually red, but tried to ignore it. I used the rest room and my hands started burning! I looked down and they were swelling super fast before my eyes. I was so freaked out! I hurried and got my rings off (thank goodness!) and put my hands under cold water. I slowly turned the water up until it was lukewarm, but not much was changing. My hands were huge, red, and shiny. It was the scariest thing. I tried to call my mom, but she was working. I called my dad and he was busy, but said to just warm them up gradually under water, so I kept doing that. The pain went away and slowly the redness, but the swelling took a lot longer to go down. IT WAS SO SCARY. I am happy to report that my hands are fine now, but I guess winter and I are bigger enemies that I had before thought.

My companion of the week

Later that evening we finished our puzzle of Las Vegas. I think we were dreaming off warmer places... :) Then we started watching a Red Box we'd rented when our power went out. I saw a huge flash of green light outside. It was crazy! We sat in the dark with a couple of candles lit for about forty minutes until it came back on. My school got cancelled again for the next day, but not David's. :(

 Our finished masterpiece

FRIDAY

Snow Day

The power had gone out again during the night, but was back up and going. I woke up able to breathe through my nose! I had missed that so much. haha David told me that he was so glad that I almost had my real voice back because it had been pretty scary. haha

I got up while David was clearing off the car and steps of the new snow and ice and made some french toast and more herbal tea. David ate and got cleaned up. He had an assignment due at 9:30 and class at 10:00. David tried to leave at 8:30, but our private drive hasn't been plowed at all since we've had all of this snow. Thanks property management! We have done our best to keep as much snow out of our walkway and drive, but there are 4 other duplexes on this private drive that haven't been so helpful. David got stuck. He dug around the car and moved a little, but wasn't getting far. At about 9:00 he decided to put chains on the front tires. He was soaking wet, but finally got everything situated and got going at 9:30. I ran him out a dry pair of pants before he took off. I called our property managers and complained about the snow. They assured me that there will be someone out to plow today... So I am going to hope for that and some above freezing temperatures!

Now that I am feeling much better,  I am ready to spend the weekend with David!

Christmas Spirit

I love that this time of year can brighten any situation!

 Here is our tree.. I am not a photographer by any means! It looks like we are loaded with presents, but I will let you in on the truth. There are wedding gifts under there, along with gifts for my parents from all of the children (my siblings), AND I wrap gifts in big boxes so it seems more exciting. :) Now that I am thinking about it, maybe I am setting every gift receiver up for disappointment! haha Oh well, I guess I still have the child mentality that a bigger present is better.

 These are our lovely UGLY Christmas sweaters. We had a ward party with the theme... we were one of four couples that actually dressed up. Living in a college town we couldn't find ugly sweaters at thrift stores. They were wiped clean! David thought up the-half Christmas tree so that when we stand together it makes one-idea. He even sewed on his own ribbons and jingle bells! That was mostly because we procrastinated in making these until an hour before the party!

Merry Christmas!

David finishes his last final of his first semester of law school tomorrow. After I finish work on Friday, we are on vacation!! Woohoo!

Friendship

Growing up I went through phases of friends. My siblings came first, then my neighbor friends, friends from church, and then friends at school. Many friends became close friends and plenty more were just nice acquaintances or situational friendships (just in a certain class, etc.). For the past three years, David has been my best friend. It is easy to stay best friends because we live together by choice and spend time with each other every day. Over the years as things have changed I haven't been the best at keeping up with old friends. I still look back fondly on our relationships and all of the memories we have together. I really enjoyed getting together with a friend over Thanksgiving that I really hadn't seen to in a couple of years probably. It's always nice when you can just pick up where you are and still be good friends. I am REALLY bad at talking on the phone and love seeing what is going on in friend's lives through blogs and Facebook, even though it isn't as good as living in the same town and getting together. I hope to continue to become a better friend. I am still learning.
 After our move to Moscow and having to make new friends here, I have thought about the friendships in my life a lot. We had many great friends throughout our lives, in Provo, and others that have moved to various places all over the country. We have also been lucky enough to make some new, great friends here in Moscow.

Yesterday I received a package from one of our Provo friends. She worked with David and is a true gem. What a fun surprise and nice note! This week we also received some Christmas cards from friends. It felt good to be thought of and to see what they were up to.
I am SO thankful for all of my friends throughout the years. You have each made an impact in my life. I appreciate the love you've shown me. Thank you!

Veteran's Day

I am so blessed to live in the country that I do and enjoy the freedoms that I have. Here is a neat story about my great-grandmother's brother, Gerald Sorensen who served in WWII. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/belgium/100605/world-war-ii-history-resistance?page=full
What a sacrifice he made in leaving his new bride to serve for our freedoms.

Fun Weekend

Now that David & I live so much closer to our parents we like to take advantages of weekends in Moses Lake. When we don't have to teach sunbeams or any other commitments we will take off after I get off work on Fridays and stay until after dinner on Sundays. Last weekend was one such weekend.

Last Sunday was my mother-in-law's birthday. David had told her we weren't going to make it for her birthday, but we decided we'd come and surprise her. David told his Dad so that they wouldn't have plans that we would be crashing.

On Friday we showed up at the Law's house to surprise Tracey & no one was home! David has a key, so we went in and lounged on the couch & watched some football while we waited. He also strategically moved the car out of sight down the street. His parents went to a dinner at the church. They soon came home. As they walked in the garage door, Tracey was surprised to see the hall light on and hear the t.v.... and then she saw us on the couch! She just laughed and was surprised! I was proud of Bob for not ruining the surprise. :)

We then went and spent some time with my parents. David wanted Mexican food so we hit up Inca!

The next morning we stopped by my parent's house again for a bit, but they were busy packing to head to Cabo... Tough life, I know. We did get to see Kamille and Derek a bit too.

This would be more interesting with pictures I realize... But I didn't take any & my laptop crashes if you open Google Images.. Weird, I know.

Bob suggested that we help Tracey move some things around in her new work office over in Quincy and then continue on to Wenatchee to go to Wok About Grill. Of course no one opposed that idea. It turns out that there really wasn't much to do in the office. David was the only real help. On the drives we had nice conversation.

In Wenatchee we first visited Fred Meyer. Then we ate at Wok About Grill, which is better than the other Mongolian grill places I have been to. It was reeeeeeeally good. We checked out Hooked on Toys. Tracey and I had a fun time trying on silly winter hats... Rabbit fur, sock monkeys, various animals, sparkly, etc. We laughed a lot. Those would have been some great pictures! Meanwhile, David and Bob looked at fishing stuff and guns. David and I added the game Farkle to our growing collection. Then Tracey suggested ice cream.

We went to Baskin Robbins. David was the first to order. It was this punk kid working there, not acting like he really wanted to be there. David ordered two scoops of ice cream. The worker got the smallest cup in the world and put the two smallest "scoops" of ice cream you can imagine. I was thinking of only getting one scoop of ice cream because of the big dinner, but when I saw David's I decided to go for two. I ordered two scoops of my flavor. The kid pulled out a much bigger cup and gave me two good-sized scoops of ice cream! hahahahahahaha! Tracey and Bob ordered their ice cream, David paid. We had a good laugh over the difference in size between our ice cream that we ordered exactly the same. It was pretty funny.

That night we tried out Farkle.

Sunday we went to church with David's parents and had dinner with a bunch of the Law clan out at Grandma and Grandpa Law's house.

It is so nice to look forward to these visits! We are already excited for our long weekend at Thanksgiving!

We are still alive

I thought I'd let you all know that we are still alive in Moscow.

Our table makeover! I didn't remember to take a before. Dang.

We finished a puzzle from David's mom.

I made a fall/Halloween banner! Yes, I know the candy corn colors aren't in the correct order. I copied this idea http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/2010/09/fall-project-reversible-candy-corn.html and didn't realize until afterward. BUT, it is still cute.We teach sunbeams(think 3 year old Sunday School craziness) and aren't very good at self-photography.

David is a model.

Umm... we have done/do other things, but these are the only pictures we have taken...We also would love visitors, so come see us!