With Thankful Hearts

Well, it appears that it has been longer since we've posted a real blog (with pictures) than I thought! The last several weeks have been very intense, with lots of school assignments due and not enough time to work on them.

We can't pretend that it's been all work and no play, though. We attended a BYU Marching Band concert a few weeks (?) ago and saw some of our friends perform. I had to wear earplugs because the concert was inside - in a concert hall - and we had seats in about the third row. It was loud. But we had fun.

I've been privileged to spend some time with my female friends lately. This has made me very grateful for them! Thomas and I tend to hang out with each other the majority of the time - which is a delight - but it's healthy and happy to get out once in a while. So, thank you, my dear friends, for inviting me to do things with you!

Yesterday at church, our Sacrament meeting was filled with a Primary program. We wanted to show you pictures of the programs - each one colored by one of the children - but they asked that we give our comments/feedback inside the programs and leave them in the chapel so the leaders could read our notes to the children during Primary. They were cute. The program was nice, too. There was, of course, the one kid (about 6) who got up there and said silly things into the microphone. Word on the street (by street I mean Relief Society) was that this kid's mom confiscated silly string from him before church. Thank goodness.

We officially have snow - not a lot, but enough that it is sticking on the lawn etc. We had a very windy evening the other night, and fortunately for us, the huge gusts blew all of the fallen leaves from our lawn to somewhere else. We were amazed by how clear the sidewalks were after the windstorm.

We're still managing to get to the temple on a pretty regular basis. Sometimes, this takes miracles. We had an especially sweet reminder of God's love for us this week. We were on a time constraint when we got to the temple, and due to there being a wait, it looked as though if we stayed, we would be late in getting Thomas to work. Heavenly Father heard our silent prayers, though, and once we put things into His hands, everything went smoothly. We made it out in time to rush home and change before driving to Thomas' workplace. Sometimes, it is these little blessings that are the most significant: would it have been a disaster for Thomas to arrive a few minutes late to work? No. But this little miracle reminded us that God does care about the little things in our lives, and that He blesses His children for their obedience and effort.

In other exciting news, we are on our way to Thomas' parents' for Thanksgiving. In fact, I am writing this 36,991 feet above Kansas. I have never been this far east before! Thank you, Seth, for getting us to the airport today. We've been blessed with good weather thus far and we are so grateful to have a break from the daily grind.

Finally, Thomas wants to make sure we share our most recent numbers from Google Analytics. From December 13, 2009 through this morning, the totals are:
Countries: 53
States: 41
Cities: 425
Visits: 4441
This means we've had 4441 visits to our various websites, coming from 425 cities in 53 countries, including 41 United States.

Happy Thanksgiving!
oxox