The New Year Is Upon Us!

Welcome to the year 2012, where we've already seen events of disaster and destruction in our household. Literally days into the new year, our condo neighbors had a pipe bust that caused all sorts of flooding in our building with loads of damage to boot. I got a knock on my door on Monday the 2nd from some flood damage repair folks who said they were offering to check and see if there was any damage to our condo. I didn't think there was, because I hadn't seen any water come through the shared wall we have with our neighbors. Lo and behold, both our walls and our brand new tile were wet and in need of drying else they suffer severe damage.  So, we had them come and bring some fans in to see what they could dry out.  A few days later, they ripped off our baseboards, drilled some holes in the walls, and brought in some heaters, hoping that it would accelerate the drying.  We had a rollercoaster of "it's getting better, everything should be fine" and "if it doesn't get any better we're going to have to rip out your tile" for about a week and a half.  Not to mention that the machines they brought in caused the temperature in our house to rise to the mid-90s if we didn't open all of our windows.  Oh and did I mention that flapping plastic "tents" keep you up in the middle of the night so you get some of the worst nights of sleep in your life?  Well, they do.  I wish I'd taken a picture of the makeshift dome/tent thing they created to try and isolate the heat on our tile to dry it out.  It made using our kitchen a pain.

But, ultimately, it dried with no apparent damage to walls or tile, and someone else's insurance will pay for it.  More than anything I feel bad for all of our condo-mates that got affected.  The repair people said that if there was a lottery to be had in all of the damage that was done, we would have won with how little there was.  Our neighbors from where the leak sprung seemed to have the worst of it as far as I've been able to make out.

Now that the literal dust has settled on that event, we're hoping to move on with our lives with business as usual.  Except BETTER THIS YEAR THAN LAST YEAR.  I'm of the opinion that we should always seek improvement, even if things were pretty good before.  And that's what I'd consider 2011: a pretty good year.  Still, I see lots of room for improvement.  I'd really like to do more writing this year than I've done before.  Whether it be on our blog, a different blog project, or just some fiction novel (and even picture book) ideas that I've been tossing around my head.  I'd like to make 2012 a much more productive year for my downtime than 2011 was.  We'll see what comes of it.

Holy Christmas Time!

Here is a video to add to your Christmas cheer.



Speaking of Christmas cheer, Tom and I have been having a lot of it.  I went with my family to pick out their Christmas tree after Thanksgiving, and fell in love with some tiny trees.  My dad and I share a great love for tiny things, so he bought me my own little Christmas tree.  It is so cute!  This is the first time in our married life that Tom and I have had a tree of our own.

My tiny tree even has some gifts under it.  Some from my wonderful, generous 1st grade students and their families, and one mysterious one from Tom.  He says he has two more ideas on top of that one that he wants to get me for my birthday and Christmas.  He says he was shopping for his other ideas, when he saw this one and knew I'd love it.  He tells me things like that all the time, things about the gifts, but not really giving any clues as to what they could be.  Sneaky Tom!  Tom are at a point in our lives where if we really want something, we try to save for it, and then go get it.  Tom has never said to me, "I really want a new mouse for my computer for Christmas."  He says, "I really want a new mouse, so I've done my research, and found which one I want, I'll save money and get it soon."  Therefore, coming up with gifts has been tricky.  I have a good one for him, though.  I am super excited.  I am going shopping for it this week.

We added to our Christmas cheer with the Festival of Trees.  I was a little disappointed that I missed the deadline to donate.  Next year I'll be ready for sure.  Here are pictures of some of my favorite displays.

Gingerbread White House

Madagascar

Up

Jackson Pollock Tree.  My dad recreated this in gingerbread.  It was awesome.

Turned wood ornamen

Telisa by the tree made out of the Eiffel Tower

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Because two pumpkins isn't enough.

So, we love holidays in my family.  More specifically, we love holidays in my family because Lovetta LOVES holidays.  Halloween is one of her favorites.  If you couldn't tell from previous posts, let me just settle this one in your mind right now by posting pictures of our third pumpkin of the Halloween season.

This one was especially fun for us, because we got to carve it with Rob and Lisa over Skype!  It was Rob's birthday and we always used to do something for the occasion with them.  We love those guys!

Oh what?  Three pumpkins isn't enough evidence that we love Halloween, huh?  Well, what about this!

And this!



These came from the Halloween party that Lovetta's parents threw for her little sister.  Cute shadow puppets, huh?!

There, that should have you convinced.

We're excited about the upcoming holidays.  We'll be spending Thanksgiving with my sister up in Idaho and Christmas back here in Utah with Lovetta's family.  There will be much nog-o-clocking goin' on.  Rest assured.

What time is it? Nog-o-clock!  Cheers!

Also, Lovetta's brother, Trezor, comes back from his mission this week!  How exciting!  We've enjoyed reading his letters and hearing about all of the awesome work he's been doing spreading the gospel in New York.  We're excited to have him back and Christmas is going to be a big hullabaloo with all of Lovetta's siblings in town.  Should be good times ahead!

Fall Pleasures

 I love the fall!  I love the way the leaves sound when I step on them.  (And, yes, I do go out of my way to step on as many as I can.)  I love wearing sweaters and jackets.  I love fall foods like chili and cornbread and pumpkin rolls.  Speaking of pumpkin, I love the pumpkins too.  I love baking and eating the seeds, and I love carving.  This year I decided to take as much advantage of those loves as possible.  Therefore, I carved my 1st pumpkin for FHE on the first Monday in October.

 

We carved our second pumpkin with my family on Sunday.

This year, Telisa came up with the theme of "sunglasses" to base out pumpkins on.  This is Dracula.  He is wearing bat sunglasses.

Skyler has a pumpkin head!

My dad's pumpkin.  Mahna Mahna.

Here they are all together: a family of pumpkins.  Telisa's is a chef kitty, Melody's is the skeleton, and Mom's looks a lot like Mom.  What Halloween joy!

OOOO... spooky all lit up. It was surprisingly hard to get them all lit at once.

My mom sewed us each matching but unique aprons.  So cute!

As you can see, my sister Melody got to come visit.  It was great to get to spend a little time together.  How can I not be exited about fall after a post like this.  But wait!  There's more.  We also went up Provo canyon and took pictures.  The mountains are so beautiful.  I can't resist posting more pictures.

BAM!

I was feeling artistic.

I am pleased to say I took this picture.

Cheesy grins!

Tradition!

So, Lovetta and I decided to take some time out of our busy schedule and join in the BYU Homecoming festivities.  Every year, for many years now, BYU has an annual "Hike the Y" event where we all go and hike up Y Mountain to light it for Homecoming week.  We never did it as undergrads, so we figured that doing it as alums would be better than nothing.  Lovetta's family hadn't done it, either, so they came along for the fun!  It's a hike with a beautiful view of the Utah Valley.  Just look!

I wish we'd brought our nice camera instead of just having my cruddy iPod camera, but it's better than nothing.  We got to the top, about 10 minutes before they lit up the mountain.  It was pretty cool to see.

All-in-all, a very fun trip.

I've been trying to find something constructive to do with my time outside of work these days.  Truth be told, I've spent a lot of it playing video games.  And while that's a lot of fun, it doesn't quite fill my need to be productive with my life.  So, I've taken to writing a review blog.  It's all about the new things I'm discovering in life and how I feel about them.  While I feel like the writing is quite a bit amateurish, I'm hoping it will get better over time.  Feel free to check it out and give me some suggestions of things I should look into and review!  I'm hoping to write in it at least once a week, but we'll see how that goes.

Lastly, I'm finally getting an iPhone.  Here's to hoping it's everything I've dreamed of.  More on that later when it arrives, I'm sure.

I can't think of a title... here's the update anyway.

Quite a few things have happened since I wrote on this blog last.
1. We replaced some of the carpet in our living room/kitchen area with tile.

2. We replaced some broken blinds with curtains.

3. Tom had a birthday.  We made cupcakes with delicious frosting.  Dan and Ashley came over and we played a board game called Pandemic.  It's a cooperative game where everyone is on one team trying to beat the game.  We lost.  It was fun anyway.

4. The season changed.  It is starting to feel like fall.  I love the fall.  I love pumpkins and the colorful leaves and the way the air feels.
5. My weekdays filled up with all sorts of stuff, and I worked too much.  General Conference has been very relaxing and inspiring.  I am determined in weeks to come to spend my time on what matters most.