Walking for Donuts

I had a vision weeks ago of Abe and I and all of our friends dressing up like Super Hero's on Halloween and going for a morning run around Reston. Today my dream became a reality.

We made a few changes though...not everyone was dressed as a Super Hero; only the coolest did, especially our friend Steve who really is Super Man! And instead of a run it was a slow walk because of the kids that came with us.

We walked through the Town Center Mall near our condo and even though it was pretty chilly and windy it was worth it to get the strange looks from people as we went by.

After our walk a few more friends joined us for Super breakfast of Donuts and Orange juice, Yum! P.S. this is my good friend Danni and I apologize to her that once again I am posting a picture of her with her eyes shut. Every time I take her picture she has her eyes shut! It's all right though because she is so pretty nobody would notice.

It was a fun morning and I think Abe and I may have created a new tradition for our future Super Ford Family! Thanks to all my friends that could come and bring my vision to life. Too bad it made my cold get worse and turned it into a sinus infection...oh well, we had fun.
Happy Halloween Everyone!

Ward Halloween Party

Yummmm! Doesn't this look delicious? I made this cake for the desert contest at our Ward Halloween party tonight. It was red velvet cake with butter cream frosting and a layer of Cherry preserves in the middle. All the viens are made from Twizzlers pull and peels dipped in red butter cream. Sadly I forgot to eat some at the party and didn't get a chance to taste my creation. I heard it was good but who would tell me if it wasn't? If you are wondering right now if I won or not let me save you the suspense right now and tell you no, I did not win. :(
I got second place. First place went to someone that brought a pumpkin cheesecake which apparently was super delicious...but come on how much creativity went into that? Just kidding, I am sure they deserved to win. I just get really competitive sometimes.

This is a cute little girl from one of the families that Abe home teaches. She was very excited to show Abe her hat once she saw that he had one too.

These are a few of Abe's cub scouts. The two on the ends are also in my primary class. It is fun to work with these kids, they keep us on our toes.

I knew there would be another opportunity for me to wear my Minnie ears somewhere other than Disney World. I had Minnie Mouse gloves for my hands as well but I wasn't wearing them in this pic.
It was a fun party with a great turn out. Besides the desert contest there was also a chili cook off and Abe was a judge so he got to taste every kind of chili there was. He had no idea that there would be 21 different chillies to taste! He definitely didn't have room for any desert after all that chili. I played it smart because I was sitting with Abe at the judging table, I waited till I heard which chili was the best before I got in line to dish me up a bowl. They picked a good one and it turns out that it was the same person that won the chili cook off last year that won. We really love the Reston Ward!

The end of an Era

For anyone that knows me, they probably noticed my wooden beaded hand bag that I have had forever! The first one I got was a much smaller wooden beaded hand bag, the same style as my current one only smaller. I was about 15 years old when I got it and because I liked it so much and it went with almost everything, I stuck with the same one all this time. Each time one purse wore out or I accumulated so much stuff that it wouldn't fit any longer in the size bag I had I would upgrade...same purse just larger size. Until last week.

I was in Anthropologie with a friend of mine when I saw this super cute bag! It was love at first sight. I picked it up and it just so happens to be the softest leather I have ever felt. I wasn't really in the market yet for a new hand bag but I just couldn't help myself, I had to have it!

Two days later my sweet, loving husband took me back and bought it for me! Yeah!!!
So I would like to introduce everyone to my new hand bag. She my look quite different from all that came before her, but she is just as special. I am looking forward to taking her to new and exciting places and many wonderful years together. Welcome home super cute hand bag!

Quick note to my old hang bag...I hope you know how much you mean to me. You have always been loyal and treated me and my things well. It was not you, it was me. I hope we can still be friends and I promise to still take you out from time to time. Thank you and farewell.

Autumn is here

My favorite season of the year is here! I love Autumn especially on the East coast because of how many trees there are. This is the lake that boarders our condo complex. check out the rest of the views in our neighborhood, it is just a taste of how beautiful it is here right now!

These are the trees surrounding the pool area.

A few weeks ago Abe brought me home these pretty flowers. What a sweet husband I have. He said that they reminded him of lions...I can see where he was going with it because they look like giant dandy lions. P.S. this was almost 3 weeks ago and two of them are still alive and looking pretty good.

Navy vs. Air Force 2009

We decided that since we couldn't go to a BYU game this year, we would go to the Air Force vs. Navy game instead. We thought it would be fun to see the events leading up to game time.

This is the Air Force Falcon. I am actually terrified of birds especially the large ones with huge talons and sharp beaks. I won't even hold a parakete I am so afraid of it pecking me. So standing this close was pretty daring for me. I even got up the courage to pet his belly! It might have helped that the bird's eye's were covered with a blind fold and the guy holding him held the bird's face while I touched him just in case he tried to peck at me.

It was cool to see all the Navy men and women filling the stands all in White.

At the beginning ceremony they had the Navy come out to on the field in their troops and they filled the entire field. It looked really neat. Once they got into the stands the Navy Choir sand the Nation Anthem and it almost brought Abe and I to tears hearing our countries armed forces singing throughout the stadium. There is definitely something different about hearing it sung by the people that fight to protect our freedom.
At last the football teams took the field and right as the Navy team stormed out 3 fighter jets did a fly by over the stadium and they were so loud that you couldn't hear anything else. That was the coolest part. The game started and for almost the entire first half Air Force looked really bad and we thought it was going to be a blow out. Abe and I were sitting on the grass and there were tons of fans with no where to sit standing behind us. We both decided that we didn't really care who won and we felt like we saw what we had come to see. So we packed up just before half time and left early. We love Annapolis so it was really fun to go and experience this long time rivalry game. When we got home we found out that the game had turned into a much more exciting game in the second half and had even gone into over time with Air Force losing by a field goal! Oh well, at least we didn't have to battle traffic and Abe was home in time to go to Priesthood session. It was a really fun day and the weather was so beautiful that it was nice just to be outside.

Last Day

The last day we were there we woke up and got ready to go to the Orlando Temple. It was really beautiful and we were so glad that we were able to go while we were there. It was not without some struggle getting there though. I left my temple recommend at home and didn't realize till we were leaving and when we got there both Bonnie and Chris noticed that there's expired 2 days earlier. Luckily we were able to get a hold of our awesome bishop and stake president and they let us in.
By the time we got back to the hotel we didn't have time to go to a park so we thought we would go to the pool for a bit. We ate lunch and while eating we started watching the funniest movie ever, "The Incredibly Shrinking Woman."
It is a classic eighties film where this woman start shrinking and they don't know why. Long story short she ends up living in a doll house wearing barbie clothes, she get catapulted off a pillow by her sleeping husband, she is rescued by an ape and in the end she becomes normal size again by falling into some spilled chemicals. Need I say more??
We were so into this incredibly stupid movie that we never made it to the pool that day and by the time it was over it was time to pack up and leave to get to the airport. It was a great trip and we had a ton of fun, but it was good to get home and back to normal again.

Epcot

On day four we went to Epcot. One of the first things we did was go on this ride called, "Mission to Mars." For anyone going to Epcot in the future, DO NOT GO ON THIS RIDE!!! In the picture above I am obviously sick. It is a virtual reality ride that simulates a space shuttle launch. I am serious when I say it really feels like you are on a space ship getting launched into outer space. They warn you about 20 times before you get on the ride that you shouldn't go on it if you get motion sick and we all laughed about it and went on it anyway. Well...we all got sick! Luckily nobody actually through up but we all had to sit on a shady bench for about 30 minutes before we could anything. After we got our stomachs back a little we walked around the lake and visited the different countries. It was fun. We ate lunch in a Mayan Temple in Mexico and got disgusting deserts in Norway. Unfortunately, we did not have the energy to stay for the night show. Although we hear that it is a really cool show. We were just way too pooped and went back to the hotel for a soak in the hot tub and hula show.

Magic Kingdom

Day three we did the Magic Kingdom and it was super fun. I just want to point out that the second day we were there Bonnie and I both bought Minnie ears but I just noticed that in all the pictures I have posted I am the only one wearing them. I promise I was not a geek by myself. The Magic Kingdom was really fun. Although we took a vote at the end of the day and all of us like Disney land better than the Magic Kingdom. There are a few more adult rides at Disney Land. Our favorite part of this day was Splash Mountain.

Our hotel

Thanks to my parents we were able to stay at this beautiful time share resort. This is the view out our breakfast area screened in balcony.

It was 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and fully equip. Basically bigger and nicer than our condo.

This is my very favorite part...the bath tub in our room was the size of a small swimming pool. It was great to soak in after a long day of walking in the humid heat.

Abe in the living room on the computer just like at home. We went to the pool a few times and the last night we were there they had a Hawaiian band play with hula dancers and everything it was fun.

Hollywood Studios

Day two was Hollywood Studios. It was the only day that we were able to stay from open to close. Mostly because it wasn't quite as hot, and also because most of the attractions there require you to sit for a long time so our feet didn't get quite as sore. We saw some cool things but the best part about this park is the night show is "Fantasmic". It is a little different than the one at Disney Land in California but still a great show! We were all glad that we stayed to see it.

Animal Kingdom

We flew in Monday morning and after checking into our hotel and dropping off our things we went straight to the Rain Forrest Cafe located at the entrance of the Animal Kingdom for lunch. It was more for the atmosphere but the food was really yummy too. After that we went into Animal Kingdom. We only had a few hours because the park closes at 5pm but I think we packed in all the best things. We loved the animal safari tram ride because we saw so many cool animals. At one point a bunch of Rhino's came right up to our tram and even walked across the path in front of us. One of them got so close to wear Abe and I were sitting that we could have reached out and touched his tusk! It was really cool. The two funnest rides are the river rapids ride which we went on and all of us got completely soaked...hence the above picture where we are all wet. The other ride was the funnest ride I have ever been on in my life, the Mount Everest Ride! It is so fun, I laughed I screamed and then we went on it again. I recommend this park to anyone on the fence about it. There is a lot of stuff that we didn't even have time to see. I was kind of bummed that we didn't have a full day at this park because I think it was my favorite out of all of them.

Orlando Slide Show High Lights

Visitors

Our good friends the Nate and Cass and their baby Bridger came out to visit us a few weeks ago. It was so fun to have them here. Bridger is so stinking cute and was such a good little traveler. Abe did much of the tour guiding for them because I had to work. They did a ton of fun stuff and I hear that they had a lot of fun. I did get to go with them on a tour of the Capital building and the American History museum. We also went out to eat a few times. This picture was taken at the Cheesecake Factory on Cass's birthday. It was really yummy!!

BYU Football

Our friends Jen and Peter hosted the second game and Jen made the cutest little treats!

These little things that look like footballs were just about the yummiest little deserts I have ever had. They consist of crunched up Oreo cookie's mixed with creme cheese then you dip the whole thing in chocolate and decorate with frosting. They are to die for! I will have to come up with a reason to make these some time.

They set up two TV's so they could have another game going on mute at the same time.

They won again, go BYU! We are now 3-1 and if Max Hall can try to not throw the ball the the opposing team so much I think we will have a great season.

Ragnar 2009

Just imagine for a moment...six sweaty men crammed into a van for about 31 hours straight. That is Ragnar!

Stretching is twice as fun if you do it with a buddy.

Team "Hold the Mayo" after completing this incredible feat of strength.

Way Behind

Okay okay... I have heard your complaints and you are right it is time for me to start blogging again. I have been so busy lately that is has been hard to find time. Now that I am so far behind the task seems so daunting that I have been putting it off even when I have had time. So here is my recap of what we have been up to.

I have been very busy with my day job as a nanny for the cutest little girl in the whole world. She is getting older and much more mobile which means that I have to now be much more mobile in order to keep up with her. Other than that I have been very busy in the evenings doing friends and ward members hair. I am also busy on the weekends with doing wedding hair. August and September were the busiest wedding months I have had yet. It is great, but it is also exhausting at times. Especially when I have a picky bride or a huge wedding party to work with. I am also training to do the Richmond half marathon on November 14th. I have never been a morning person, Abe can attest to that, and pretty much the only time I have time to run is in the morning. So I have been getting up early to run which means that I am usually wiped out by about 7:30 pm each night. Basically Abe and I are now 80 year old people that go to bed at 8 pm. It is really good to be busy though, I actually really enjoy it most of the time.

Abe has been working hard at Freddie and is now in his third out of four rotations and he really likes it so far. He got to take off 3 days in a row last month for a training class and today he got the day off to go to a Freddie Mac recruiting thing. Two weeks ago he ran the DC Ragnar Relay Race with some of his friends from church and they had a blast. Those of you that don't know what that is, it is a 200 mile relay race and you are in groups of 12 runners. Abe ran 3 different times and his total mileage was around 13 miles. They start on Friday morning and they run all day, through the night, and into the next afternoon. Crazy...I know! People that know Abe know that this is right up his alley and to make things even better, his team's name was "Hold the Mayo". Abe actually had nothing to do with the name funny enough. I was surprised he would even wear a shirt that said "Mayo" on it at all. I have a few pictures from his race that I will put in the next post along with picture high lights of the last month.

Funniest Video Ever

Good Bye Kohn's

We said good bye to our good friends Lauren and Phill a few weeks ago. They moved to Reston at the same time Abe and I did and they are such a great couple. They moved to California and we miss them a ton!
(left to right Me, Dannie, Jen, Bonnie, and Lauren)
We had a going away party for them and went to dinner and got some gelato. We are so blessed to have such good friends!

Great Hike

Two weeks ago Abe and I went hiking with some of our friends in the Shenandoah mountains. It was a little over 8 miles and we went up apx. 2000 feet and back down 2000 feet. It took us 7 hours from start to finish, including stops. It was a pretty tough hike, but really fun.

All along the hike you pass by various swimming holes, waterfalls and natural rock slides. Luckily it wasn't too hot because of the shade by all the trees, but it was crazy humid! You can actually see the humidity in some of the pictures.

Abe's favorite part was the slides.

We had a great time!

Yeah Abe!!

This is a late post but Abe Passed his first CFA Exam!!! I am so proud of him for his hard work and we are excited to start studying for his next test.

Summer visit to Utah

Aren't they cute! These are our nieces and nephews on the Price side of the family. We did a ton while we were in Utah. Sadly, we did not take our camera with us to any of these activities! These are all pictures that other people have sent to me so I could document our trip. That is why they are only of family things and Abe and I aren't actually in them. haha.

The main reason we went out to Utah was to go to my sister Lissa's wedding. She and Steve got married on July 11th and it was beautiful. It was a small backyard wedding with family and close friends. Everything was perfect. We are so happy for them.

Of course I was the hairstylist for the bride and her daughter Natalie. I have to say I was pretty proud of how her hair turned out.

These are her three children from left to right: Natalie, Joey (who got a black eye from jumping on the bed the day before the wedding. haha) and Jake. Steve added one more child to the family and his name is Tyson.

The Monday after the wedding we went boating with some of the family as well. Lissa and Steve have a boat and they invited my brother Rob and his family and Abe and I because both of our families were visiting from out of state. Since our family is so big not everyone would fit on a boat at one time...
The goofball in the picture above is my brother Rob wake boarding.

My mom and dad just cam along for the ride. My dad did get in the water for about 2 minutes. He quickly decided it was much colder than he expected and returned to the boat to warm back up. The kids in the picture are Lissa and Steve's four kids and my brother's two kids, Jaxon and Savannah.

Abe is the best uncle! I am sure he is the favorite of all because he is so playful and loves to rough house. I think he strategically placed the kids all around him to hide how white he was in his swimming suite.

Fun things that we did while in UT that are not documented include the aftermath of the boating trip where Abe and I were bright red and sat icing our burns for the next two days, various dinners and lunches with friends, several trips to Cafe Rio and a Ford family pool party. We were busy the entire trip and we had a blast! It was great to see everyone and we miss you always.

The Fourth of July 2009

Every year on the fourth of July since Abe and I have been married, I have made a trifle. I decorate the top differently each time. This is this years trifle. One of our favorite deserts, yummy!

Our friends had a BBQ to raise awareness to the disease ALS or lue garricks disease. They did a great job. The food was great and everyone went away knowing more about this not very well known disease.

Chris and Abe manning the grill.

Bonnie and I decorated.

After the BBQ we all went to a Nationals game where proceeds from ticket sells was to be donated to ALS research. It was a really good game and the National actaully won!

After a great Fourth of July Day is done there is only one more thing to experience and that is the fireworks on the National Mall. They were amazing as usuall. We went to our favorite spot which is sitting on the grass in between the Washington and the Lincoln memorials near the concert bandstand. We enjoyed a free outside concert and the most spectacular fireworks we have ever seen anywhere! After the fireworks it is a race to the metro to beet the crowds back and I think this year we did a good job because it only took us 1 hour to get home. Then we ate a late night snack because we hadn't eaten all day since the BBQ.
It was another great 4th of July here in DC. Our favorite day of the year!

Night at the Smithsonian

On July 3rd Abe and I went with a couple of our friends, President Roosevelt and Robin Williams, to see their new hit movie night at the Smithsonian. Because of our VIP friends we got to see the movie at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum at night!
Just kidding, we obviously didn't get to go with any famous friends and the theater is open to anyone. We actually went with our friends Bonnie and Chris and it was so fun!

The movie was hilarious. We liked it even more than the first one, we highly recommend it. We love living in DC because of little things like this that we get to enjoy.

Weekend in New York

Most of these pictures are in chronological order but there are a few misplaced ones too. We went to New York this last weekend and had so much fun! I put a ton of pictures on here so I will try to be brief in my descriptions and only highlight the really good stuff.
The view above is from Central Park at sunset.

The first night we got there around 12:30am and check into our room that was supposed to have two beds in it because we were sharing with another couple (Bonnie and Chris). We got to our room and there was only one bed and the room was TINY! They actually had to remove some furniture to get the roll away to fit in the room. We had to have 3 people sleep in the big bed and one on the roll away. It was quit the experience sleeping between Abe and Bonnie all night with Chris snoring nearby. It was pretty funny. But because of this unfortunate room hotwire.com got upgraded us to a 4 star hotel for the next night where we got 2 rooms for free! So we didn't even have to share rooms and we had a night in a great hotel over looking central park! One bad night of sleep was totally worth that.

I just thought this was a pretty picture in Central Park.

On Friday we went to Liberty and Ellis island.

For dinner on Friday we went to our favorite pizza place in the whole world, Grimaldi's Pizzeria! In this picture the owner was giving Bonnie a hard time because she was wearing a Boston Red Socks hat. He jokingly forced her to take it off even though she really didn't want to show everyone her hat hair. Once she finally took it off he kissed her on the cheek and told her to put it back on. He then took a photo off the wall and showed it to us. It was a picture of him in his restraunt with Mickey Mantel and one other really famous Yankee players back in the day. He was a really funny guy and even though he gave Bonnie a hard time, he was so funny that we all couldn't stop laughing. He finally told us "Just give me your money and get the h#*# out of here." He was this old Itallian guy that totally seemed straight out of a movie. It was great.

The best pizza ever, an all white pizza with basil. yummy!

View from the Central Park Castle.

Grimaldi's Pizza is right under the Brooklin Bridge. This peir is about one block away and is a great photo opp.

At Grimaldis the owner is Itallian, all of the waiters are Russian men and all of the cooks are Latino.

Abe and I with AJ and his friend.

Abe doing the Bonnie picture pose. I thought it was funny that he is trying to smile cheesy in this picture and it is closer to a natural smile than if he were just trying to smile normally for a picture.

After Grimaldi's we went to a chocolate shop that looked like it was a scene from Harry Potter. There was chocolate and candy everywhere. We got some yummy deserts.

On Saturday we ate at a really famous restraunt for lunch called Tavern on the Green in Central Park. It is so beautiful!!! A lot of movie scenes have been filmed at this restraunt. It was kind of pricey but worth going at least once.

It about as ritzy as Lacille is in Utah just to give you an example. The first Ghost Busters movie has a scene at this place that you might recognize.

After lunch we hurried to Broadway and saw the "Lion King." It was amazing! The music was so incredible it made me cry.

This is about as close to being on broadway as I will ever get, so I thought I would relish the moment.

This was actually Friday night. We walked along the water in Brooklin after dinner and the sky was so amazing! I have never seen clouds like this before. They looked like thousands of tiny round cotton balls in a brightly colored sky.

Our last day was Sunday. We spent the morning walking around Central Park again and then went to China Town for lunch. We are plugging our noses in this picture because there was a crazy funky smell in the streets of China town that literally made us sick to our stomachs. We ate at Joe's which is known to have the best dumplings ever. The food was really good but because the smell outside had already turned our stomachs it wasn't as enjoyable as it should have been.

After Lunch it was time to get on the China bus to go home. There is a bus that runs from DC China town to NY China town every hour on the hour for only $17.50 each way. It is a 4 to 5 hour bus ride but you can't beat the price. This was definitely the funnest trip we have taken on the East coast so far, it was great!

Running Buddies

It is Spring and I have been busy with running. I have always done races with Abe and I love running with him but I am way slower than he is and I always felt bad that he had to run so slow with me. I have finally found a running buddy that runs at my pace.

My friend Bonnie and I have run 3 races in the last 6 weeks and it has been a lot of fun. I keep forgetting to post about them so here they all are at once.

The first race we did was a 4 mile race for spinal disease research here in Reston. It was great because it rained very lightly for the last half of the race which felt great and kept us comfortable.

It was right about here that we decided to race each other to the finish.

I think it was a tie.

This is a little out of order because this was actually the last race we did. This was this last Saturday up in Georgetown we ran a 10k for heart disease. This guy in the pic above juggled the entire race!
We were feeling awesome till the last mile and I got way tired and my ankle started killing me. We still made it, I just slowed us down a little bit.

I felt pretty good about how we did though because I don't think I have run 6 miles in about a year. Bonnie is just awesome and she kept me going.

Two weeks ago we did the Susan G Koman Race for the Cure 5k up in DC around the National Mall. It was so fun! There were over 50,000 people that did it. It was seriously crazy how many people were there. I have never seen so many people wearing pink in one place before.

A special thanks to Abe and Bonnie's hubby Chris for being at the finish lines and taking all of the pics for us!

Our Little Visitor

A few nights ago I kept hearing a strange sound at our back door. I went to see what it was and discovered that we had a tiny visitor. A squirrel jumped down into our enclosed back porch and couldn't get back out. Our porch has a rock wall surrounding it on all sides. I watched it for a while and then decided to feed it, so I through out a piece of bread. This is as close as he ever got to eating it though. I think because he was scared to be so close to humans and couldn't escape he was a little too nervous to trust anything we gave him.

He kept trying to get into our house through the window. He would run and jump at the glass or climb up the screen door over and over again.

He was very entertaining. Abe almost gave him a heart attack by knocking on the glass right where he was hanging on the screen door. After this incident I started feeling bad for the little guy. So Abe and I went on a walk to search for a tree branch long enough to lean against the porch so he could climb out. We found one but he was still so scared after Abe knocked on the glass that he didn't move from the spot he was in till after we went off to bed hours later. Sometime during the night he got out. I will miss our little friend. He is the closest thing to having a pet we have ever had as a married couple. Maybe he will come back to visit again someday.

Celtic Woman

Has anyone ever seen this group on TV? Abe and I love watching them when they are on so we went to their concert and they were great.

Our favorite part was this chick who dances around the stage playing the violin like a crazy woman.

The Wolf Trap is a really cool half covered half uncovered theater in VA and it's huge!

I looked terrible in picture but I thought Abe looked cute. So I just cut myself out of it so I could still post it.

Our friends Andrew and Halie came with us and we had a lot of fun.

Cirque Dreams

Last week I went with some friends to see "Cirque Dreams" at the Wolf Trap Ampatheater while Abe studied. I had never seen a Cirque de Sole show before and it was AMAZING!
I have heard how cool it is, but it was jaw dropping, mind blowing, and spectacular! I tried to get Abe to go see it once when we were in Vegas but he said he didn't want to watch a bunch of guys in tights so we didn't go. I am so excited to take him now and see his reaction. Really I just want to be able to say "I told you so."

Strawberry Festival

I am catching up on my postings because this actually happened like two weeks ago...
We went with our friends Bonnie and Chris and their dog Duke to the Strawberry Festival in the Shenandoah mountains. For those of us from UT they aren't really mountains, more like large hills. Anyway, it was a lot of fun! Bonnie talked me into all kinds of events like the 3 legged race and the sac race (which she cheated on and one...one of her legs came out of the sack and she ran!)

We ended up with second place to these girls ahead of us in the picture in the 3 legged race. Somehow I think they cheated as well, but who's blaming who, I am not competitive or anything haha.

There is something about an adult woman, that is not afraid to put on a brown potato sack and races small children in a jumping contest, that is inspiring...don't you think?

Oh I also biffed it at the end trying to catch up to my cheating friend. She was kind enough to help me up though.

This is the last time I will give my friend Bonnie a hard time...I just thought it was too funny not to share this picture with everyone I know(that is whipped cream by the way). Love ya Bonnie!

They had a bunch of old cars to look at and Abe chose this one as his favorite. I can just imagine Abe driving down the road in this car, wearing one of his ugly shirts that he used to wear before I married him and informed him that they were ugly.

This was my favorite. I just thought it was cool.

This is what Abe looks like after being in the sun all day. He sure tans easily!

The best part of the whole day was eating ice cream topped with tons of fresh yummy strawberries!!! It was so much fun!

The Strangest Thing

This morning Abe called me into the kitchen to see something very strange...
He had just poured himself a bowl of cereal and after adding the milk he put the milk jug down. This is where things get weird, our milk has a snap on top not one that screws on. He had sat the lid on the top of the milk but didn't push it down shut. Suddenly it began lifting and dropping all by itself!!!
I came in and saw it for myself, it would lift up just slightly on one side and then drop back down. It lifted enough to make a small sound each time. Abe did it again another time to see if it was just a fluke and it did the same thing again. So either our milk is possesed or there is some scientific explanation for this phenomenon. If you have a snap on milk jug in your fridge right now, try it out and let me know if it happens to you to. Or if anyone knows why this happens please let me know, I am very curious.

Learn to Oil Paint From the Best!

My dad is the best oil painting teacher ever. I would know because he taught me everything I know! Oil painting is so fun and relaxing. I love starting out with a plain white canvas and turning it into something I am proud of. So if you want to learn something new and fun you should sign up for classes with my dad!

OIL PAINTING CLASSES AVAILABLE

Schedule your classes today!

Adult oil painting classes are one and half hours each at a cost of $20.00 per session. Classes can be taken weekly or bi-weekly, however class size is limited to four students. Located in Utah County, Utah.

To sign up please contact David at:

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Cinco De Mayo 2009

This week our friends invited us to their awesome Cinco de mayo party. It was so much fun! She made the yummiest food. We had shredded pork tacos with all the toppings and really good chips and salsa and fruit. To top it all off we also had virgin margaritas in authentic glasses brimmed with sugar. You did a great job with everything Jen!

Abe decided to dress for the occasion...

This picture doesn't do the food justice. She had 2 kinds of salsa and guacamole.

He may be a geek but he sure makes a cute cowboy.

BYU Marriott School of Management Gala Dinner

Months ago Abe and I were invited to go to the 2009 Marriott School of Management Gala Dinner. It was an event to raise money for scholarships for students to go to the BYU Marriott school. It was a $60 plate diner, but Abe amazingly enough felt like it would be fun for us to go, and it was.

It was actually really cool. The main speaker was President Henry B. Eyring and he spoke about leadership and integrity. It was a great speech, and it was really fun to be able to hear him speak in a slightly less formal way.

It was also fun to get all dressed up and go out, considering it was one of the first times I had been out of the house in over a week. I think it's fun sometimes to get dressed up because as adults there are not too many occasions where there is call for it. I had some trouble finding something to where that fit me, didn't make me look pregnant and was nice enough for this kind of thing. I will admit I had a small meltdown, but Abe was so sweet and took me out and bought me a new dress so I would not feel fat and could feel pretty. What a great guy!

The whole night was really fun. Other than President Eyring, there were lots of big wigs including a few Senators, a few Ambassadors and a ton of big bussiness men. There was a performance by a Tony award winning female Opra singer and really great food. I figured for $60 a plate we would be getting a nice meal but I didn't think it would be this good. We started off with salad and bread then they brought out the main course which consisted of Filet mignon, the best salmon I have ever had toped with a really yummy sauce with small apple chunks in it (and any of you who really know me, know that I don't usually like fish at all, but this was amazing!), mashed potatoes, and asperegous. Finally for desert, you can see from the picture at the top, we had a 3 layer chocolate mousse cake with whiped creame and raspberry sauce decorating the plate. It was totally worth the money and you better believe we will be going again next year!

Amazing Talk
This morning we went to church and we had a surprise guest in our ward...President Eyring came to our ward today! No one knew he was coming until this morning apparently, I am sure glad I wasn't speaking in Sacrement meeting today, can you imagine! The speakers funny enough were asked to speak on their favorite conference talk from this last week and none of them chose President Eyrings talk. Even though they all said that his was their favorite but they just chose to speak about another one. It was funny. At the end of the meeting he stood up and spoke for about 10 minutes and it felt like he had come to speak to me. He said that he knew their were poeple in out ward that were struggling physically, emotionally and medically and that we could be comforted knowing that Christ has suffured and felt every pain we will ever have to go through. So each week when we take the Sacrement and we hear them say in the prayer to remember him we can remember that he knows us better than anyone else and he knows exactly what we have gone through and he can comfort and heal us. It was amazing! Of course I was bawling, but it was a very neat experience. He is truly an inspired man and I am so thankful that we have men like him to lead our church.

Moving on

Abe and I would like to thank everyone who has helped us get through this last week. Many of you gave words of comfort and love through comments, emails, texts, phone calls, and gifts. We received some really beautiful flowers that I wanted to share with you before they wilt. My home had smelled so nice this week!

We received even a few more flowers after I took this photo.

I can't wait for these to bloom. They will be so pretty, thank you to the Haines family for these.

These are the beautiful lilies that my visiting teacher brought to me in the hospital, thank you to the Nelsen family.

These remind me of my wedding bouquet. They are so beautiful and they smell so good.

My sweet friends Danni and Bonnie gave me these tulips as well as a delicious treat of nutella cupcakes!

This is a mix of two gifts, one by the Shaw family who has given us so much support this last week and the other by my good friend Jen Bell who was sweet enough to bring me these as well as a ton of feel good, chick flicks for me to watch while I was recovering. I was so grateful to have them too. When you are in bed for a week by yourself all day you need some good movies to watch. Plus they helped me keep my mind off thing which was also very helpful.
Other than the beautiful flowers we also received enough food to feed us for the entire week including food from my very favorite restaurant in the whole world, Maggionos Little Italy, yummy! We were also given many yummy treats. I would have taken a picture but we ate it all...haha.

Thank you everyone, we love and appreciate you all so much!

Home and Recovering

This has been the hardest trial of my life. After confirming that we had lost our baby at 14 weeks (there is only a 2-3% chance of miscarriage after the 12th week) our doctor scheduled us to have a 'D&E' done on Saturday morning in Washington DC near the White House. A 'D&E' is a little more involved than a 'D&C' and we had to have it done because I was too far along to just have a 'D&C'. So Saturday morning Abe and I drove into DC to for the surgery. I won't go into all of the details, all I will say is that they sent us to a really ghetto abortion clinic. The waiting room was packed with people to abort their perfectly healthy babies. For many of them this was not their first time doing so. There were so many people packed into the waiting room that many of us had to wait out in the hallway. After being there for over an hour we found out that they don't even take insurance! We were both so upset by this time that we chose to leave. It was a horrible place to be in our situation and I was so glad to leave, only now we didn't know what to do. All the doctors offices were closed because it was Saturday. I couldn't help but think that there had to be at least one doctor in the Hospital near us that could perform a 'D&E'. So we decided to go to the hospital to ask. We went to the ER and explained that we just wanted to know if there was a doctor in the hospital that could do it and if so we wanted to get an appointment set up. They insisted that we had to be admitted to even discuss anything with a doctor. So I had to go through triage and they took us back into the ER where they paged my doctor. She came in to see us about 1 hour after we got there. She was a little confused as to why we were in the ER and why we didn't have the procedure done in the abortion clinic. We explained everything to her and she said that there was another doctor in the hospital that would be able to do a 'D&E' on me with her if we could wait till Tuesday. We agreed and went home.
On Sunday, I opted to stay home from church and Abe decided to go to Sacrament meeting. I was feeling okay all morning, but still pretty emotional from the previous day. Just as Abe got home, the pain started getting worse. I had a prescription for a narcotic pain killer but I didn't want to take them if I didn't need to so I took a couple Tylenol instead ( I definitely should have taken the stronger stuff though). Within the next 10 minutes the pain was horrible, but by then it was too late to take anything else. Abe and I were sitting on the couch and I just suddenly knew that I wasn't going to make it until Tuesday. I should have gone to the ER right then but I didn't. Within the next few minutes I was bleeding so heavily that Abe paged my doctor and she told us to get to the ER right away. If I were not so far along she said I would be alright to pass everything on my own but being this far along there is a high risk of hemorrhaging. What I didn't know at the time was that I had already passed the baby. Abe rushed me to the ER. I was a little hysterical and because I was hyperventilating they couldn't get an IV in me. After 2 tries with lots of digging around with the needle they got it in and started pumping me full of pain meds. I was grateful to have the pain gone, but now I was more focused on the emotional effect this was all having on us. They drew some blood when they first put in the IV but soon a nurse came in and said that the sample they had gotten had clotted and they needed another one. So they had to stick me again! Suddenly out of nowhere my sweet visiting teacher and friend Jenny came in with flowers! We asked her how she knew we were here and she said that they had gone to our apartment and when we weren't there they felt like we were probably in the hospital somewhere so they came over and asked around till they found us. I truly feel that they were prompted to find us. Her husband was with her so he was able to be there to assist Abe in giving me a blessing before I went in for surgery. We are so lucky to have a ward family here to take care of us. I don't think I had ever realized just how important that is until now. Soon the doctor came in and they took me up to the OR. I remember meeting the anesthesiologist and he explained to me that since I had eaten within the last few hours they would have to put a breathing tube down my throat once I was under. I don't really remember much after that. I just remember waking up and having Abe help me into bed at home. A few hours later our friends that we had plans to have Easter dinner with earlier that day brought over a really nice Easter meal for us. I woke up and ate a little so I could take my meds. Then I was out for the rest of the night.

This morning I am feeling like I was hit by a truck. My entire body is sore, I must have been really tensed up yesterday. Even though I am sore we are grateful to have the hardest part over. We are taking it easy for now, but we can finally say that we are on the road to recovery. This experience, while horrible, has taught me a lot. Having this happen over Easter weekend also helped us put things into an eternal perspective. I feel closer to my Savior, Jesus Christ than ever before, because I know that he is the only one who truly knows exactly what I have gone through and how it felt. It is because of his Atoning sacrifice that I know that we will be an eternal family and someday we will be together again. We are also so thankful to have so many people that love us and have supported us throughout this trial. We are more loved than we realized. Thank you for all of your kind words and prayers. In the moments where I felt complete despair it was the love of the people around me and the truth of the gospel that gave me comfort. Thank you.