October 2014

The first weekend in October, my dad & sister came out to visit, and so did Thomas' dad (with some youth from their ward), for General Conference.

Unfortunately for my dad, the night he drove down to Provo, traffic was horrendous because of a BYU home football game and a free Neon Trees concert both in Provo. We braved the concert and he found us there once he got into town :) It made me respect my dad on a whole new level the way he actually seemed to enjoy & be interested in the concert :)

Fictionist

Neon Trees

On the Saturday of General Conference, I experienced the worst "morning sickness" of my entire pregnancy. We stayed home and kept the whole day pretty low-key. Morgan joined us that evening (she had stayed with friends the night before).

On Sunday, Dad & Morgan got to go up to the Conference Center for a session of General Conference. Thomas & I stayed home to get dinner ready for them & his dad, fellow travelers, and Samuel & Sarah.

Thomas got an unexpected email saying he'd been selected for another film shoot for the church's Bible videos. It was prior to his shaving off his beard, so he went for it!

Later in the month, his dad was back in town for a conference.

We went to Octubafest this year, as a throwback to our first "date" 6 years ago.

Thanks to a little help from our friends, we were able to put these cute things in our windows for Halloween:

oxox

April 2014

In April....

We moved!

And because we got a smoking deal on strawberries, I was making jam and freezing strawberries the first weekend we were in our new apartment. I'm not sure I recommend that.

Anyway... we like our new place. It is a block away from where we've lived the past 4 years. With rent and utilities, we figure we'll be paying about the same as we were. But we gained a second bedroom, more windows, and a larger kitchen!

I finished Couch to 5K again, with my friend Denise. We've been pretty good about running 3 times a week!

I tried out another Bountiful Basket.

Those bananas never ripen to a normal, edible state. That mini watermelon was pretty good, though. And our second try on a spaghetti squash was a better experience than our first (though it's still not our favorite).

We had a lovely Easter.

I made hot cross buns.

We made a veritable feast for Easter dinner:

Deviled eggs, roasted carrots, gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, roasted lamb.... YUM.

We went to dinner with Thomas' friend from work and his wife and daughter:

And Sarah stayed with us for a couple days in between moving and traveling :)

oxox

Conference Weekend

In April and October every year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds a weekend-long General Conference, where church leaders, including our modern-day prophet and apostles, speak to church members. It is a highly anticipated event in LDS circles, and Salt Lake City, where the conference is held, booms during this time.

The addresses given focus on relevant counsel for individuals and families living today. Some topics touched on this weekend include:

• building strong eternal marriages
• coming closer to Jesus Christ by keeping His commandments
• maintaining high moral standards
• the significance of the law of chastity
• making our homes peaceful sanctuaries by keeping the Savior at the center of our lives

Thomas' dad came to Salt Lake with some friends from his ward for General Conference this weekend, and we were able to join them.

We went up on Friday night and went to the U and hiked Ensign Peak before catching dinner at Gateway Mall and then heading to Thomas' aunt's home for the night.

On the way to the U we saw this. It was across the street from a children's hospital.

Utah State's "U". "Enemy territory" ;o)

View not quite from the top.

Monument on Ensign Peak, where Brigham Young is supposed to have said, "This is the place," on coming into the Salt Lake Valley.

So... generally when we've asked people to take a picture for us, they've at least tried. Not this time. We asked this teenage boy to take our picture and he didn't even glance at the viewfinder. It was very odd, but something to laugh about :o)

On Saturday morning, we attended the first session of the conference at the Conference Center on Temple Square. It was wonderful to be there again! The Conference Center is a spectacular building.

Afterward, we went back to Thomas' aunt's home for lunch, and some friends of the Bradshaws from France joined us for a quick meal. A friend reporting to the MTC this week was set apart. Then we watched the afternoon session there before heading back to Provo for the Priesthood session and to go back home.

I was a little outnumbered...

On Sunday, we ended up watching the final 2 sessions at home.

In the afternoon, my dad and a friend who works for him came to visit on their way back to California from an adventure in North Dakota. They stayed for dinner and the friend stayed with some other friends and my dad stayed at our place for the night. It was good to have him here, though too short!

me & my dad!

Overall it was a great weekend!!!

oxox

Life after vacation

So, if you've been counting, we have been back from our trip, which 5 of the last 6 most recent posts have been about, for 3 months. Here is what we've been up to in that time...

Our ward boundaries changed. We've made some new friends!

Thomas got me flowers:

Peruvian Lillies

Progress continues at the Provo Tabernacle/Provo City Center Temple:

On the ground are the 4 tower roofs...

Thomas did another day of filming. Filming ended for the year.

We saw the play Xanadu:

At a party hosted by my employer, Thomas came in third place in bowling. All 3 top scores were by employees' spouses.

I started my last semester at BYU!! I am taking 4 classes but they are upper-level courses and a couple of them are pretty challenging. I am currently working on some really awesome projects though, and I am truly grateful to be at such a wonderful school, where my faith is strengthened, not mocked, and where aspiring to be a wife and mother is still considered by many to be a worthwhile endeavor.

• Within a couple weeks I will be calling on anyone who reads this blog (and friends/family that do not) to participate in a family life education course (it's free & online) I am building with some classmates. It is for an assignment and I think you will find our treatment of the subject matter beneficial!! Stay tuned.

We got new neighbors. The ones upstairs are related to some of my friends back home!

Thomas' dad visited us a few times. Here are some pictures from his visits:

We made sweet & sour chicken with fried rice

Jeff took us & Samuel to Gloria's Little Italy.

On a walk, we saw the apartment complex where Jeff & Kathleen lived early in their marriage.

It is just down the street from where I lived when we were dating! Arcadia has a new sign.

On another visit, Jeff treated us to dinner at Banana Leaf. It is a Sri Lankan and Singaporean restaurant that opened about a year ago. It is in an old converted house on University Avenue. We loved it! Beautiful decor and plenty of delicious food.

Everything is served on actual banana leaves!

We ordered a party combination (the "Magical Kondatum") and got to sample quite a few different dishes! It was all delicious. And we had a lot of leftovers.

One of his trips was for the Temple On Mount Zion Conference in September. You can see his presentation here. This was the second meeting of this conference, where LDS scholars present research related to temples. Topics range from Old Testament connections to symbolism in current temple architecture.

We went to the Brigham City Temple dedication (broadcast to our stake center).

We went to a regional stake conference (broadcast) where Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke.

We watched General Conference, where we listened to inspiring addresses from the current President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and sustained Prophet, Seer, and Revelator Thomas S. Monson (including exciting news about missionary service!). If you are interested in finding out what an authorized servant of Jesus Christ and true prophet has to say to us right now, you can watch/listen/read here:

• Consider the Blessings
• See Others as They May Become

We went to Megan's house for a Roommate Reunion:

We lived together in Arcadia 1 my first year in Utah. One other roommate moved in for a short time after Trista got married but she lives out of state now.

We cooked:

Lasagna with zucchini & onions inside

Sweet & sour shrimp

Cheesecake brownies. Easy and delicious.

 We explored:

We helped out at the ward Halloween party:

We carved pumpkins for Halloween:

We went to the eye doctor and ordered new glasses.

We went mini-golfing again with some friends:

Anyway, life is good -- albeit busy -- and we are looking forward to the upcoming holidays. I will graduate just before Christmas and then we will see where life takes us.

oxox