February 2013

At the beginning of February my family came out for a few days to drop Morgan off at the MTC. It was a little hectic because Morgan had a lot she wanted to accomplish but there was not much time! I think the essential stuff got done.

Dad, Sister Paulson, Mom, me. Thomas had to work. This is across the street from the MTC.

Our little missionary - she left the MTC last week for Louisiana.

Here are some other things we have been up to:

We got a great deal on strawberries, which made for some perfect pink smoothies.

Valentine's Day:

For Valentine's Day, Thomas got me some beautiful Peruvian lilies. I made truffles and a candy box for him. On top of that is a rose I crocheted. I also made some crocheted heart garlands but we didn't get any pictures...

On Valentine's Day, a couple in our ward invited us to a dinner activity for the Special Needs Activity Program (their church calling). This is Sister Johns and her son Micah. We had a great time and loved learning about the "SNAP"!

This was our 5th Valentine's Day together-- crazy, huh?

Other stuff:

I started reading The Infinite Atonement, a gift from a friend in our ward.

We took a walk the other day when the weather was nice last Tuesday and snapped a picture of the Provo City Center Temple construction progress.

We also stepped inside the new Provo Convention Center. We might have explored a little but there was nobody around.

We checked out the Covey Center for the Arts gallery for the first time in ... probably a couple years, sadly.

Last Wednesday a special and much-anticipated package arrived:

A graduation gift from Thomas' parents!

Now I need to decide on a good break-in project :oD

Thomas' dad came for a couple days last week. He was in town for a presentation.

After the temple, we had pizza and root beer floats together (with Samuel, too).

This weekend, we made it up to BYU campus:

We went to an indexathon hosted by the Vineyard (BYU chapter) that Samuel invited us to.

On our way home we briefly checked out the new venue in the Wilk, The Wall. It's a project Thomas' uncle worked on.

Other than that... well... we've been working and doing the usual stuff. I'm back to full-time hours. Work for both of us has changed buildings so it's been hard to establish a normal routine this year. We've been trying to eat healthier and exercise - I do my Leslie Sansone walking DVDs and Thomas has been playing basketball on Saturdays.

We still teach the 14-15-year-old Sunday School class. We've been implementing the new curriculum, Come, Follow Me. Today, we had a lesson on Doctrine and Covenants section 76, "the vision" of the post-judgement degrees of glory. The best part for me was when one of the students read verses 103 and 89-91 and testified that God is merciful and loves His children because even those who do wicked things ("liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers") may receive a glory "which surpasses all understanding". Very very awesome.

oxox

January 2013

We've had a very wet, very cold January. The snow has just stuck around, and every week or so we get some more. We've had some insane icicles around Provo, including on our complex. Unfortunately the gutter above our top step leaks, so we end up with a very slick patch of ice at the top of our steps.

It's hard to tell, but we were guessing the longest ones were 5-6 feet long.

I'm enjoying being out of school, especially since I do not have to walk to campus in this cold.

Here's a picture with me holding my diploma cover. My diploma arrived about a week later but we didn't take a picture :o)

In mid-January I went to visit my family for the weekend to be there for my sister to receive her endowment at the Sacramento temple and for her farewell talks. Unfortunately, Thomas couldn't come this trip. Doubly unfortunately, I was sick the entire time. Other than that it was a good weekend with lots of time with family.

Morgan at Sacramento Temple

Aunt Cookie, Mom, Dad, Morgan, Me, Aunt Ruth

Uncle Bob.... with same group as above. He and Aunt Cookie switched as photographers :o)

All the relatives that came to dinner after. Uncle Bob, Aunt Cookie, Aunt Ruth, Morgan, Dad, Mom, me, Aunt Lucy, Cousin Gail.

Morgan came back to Utah with me and stayed with us for a week. She and I went shopping at all the local places to get her outfitted for her mission! While she was here, we worked on an embroidery project our Aunt Patsy sent us a few months ago :o)

Embroidering!

Morgan sang a song for us while she was here :o)

This weekend it actually got a little warmer (like above freezing) so we went on a walk up to campus to deposit some checks/get some exercise.

Yoda and R2D2 made out of sticky notes....

oxox

Merry Christmas 2012

Here are some pictures for you. We've been able to attend several wonderful Christmas concerts this season with beautiful performances of Christmas carols. They really helped us focus on the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. Other happenings are recorded below...

Snow, Dec. 17th

Bradshaw family Christmas party

Salt Lake Temple, Dec. 22nd

Salt Lake Temple, Dec. 22nd, with Christmas lights

An amazing light display in Orem, just south of the University Parkway exit and visible from I-15 in the distance. We'd seen it several times and decided to scout it out. It was really impressive.

Christmas lights & decorations turned this Provo residence into a gingerbread house!!

us on Christmas morning, wearing our Christmas PJs from my parents

We spent a quiet Christmas at home this year, except for Christmas dinner, which we shared with a family in our ward. In the evening we took advantage of modern technology to videochat with our families.

Although we had some leftover snow from Christmas eve for a white Christmas, the real snow came afterward...

yesterday afternoon

This morning. We woke up to 10-12 inches of snow!

And now for some final pictures. We were able to get some time off work this week so today we went to Tucano's. While waiting to be seated, we went to nearby Blickenstaff's for the first time. What a cool store. They sell candy and all kinds of toys and games. (I really liked their toy selection-- I can't think of any toys I saw that I didn't like or wouldn't want to have in my home. They had a lot of Melissa & Doug stuff, including this really cute toy)

They had this weird-looking Christmas tree at Blickenstaff's. I didn't think much of it, but Thomas inspected it more closely and discovered...

...it's made out of CANDY!

those are gummy bears on that ornament. The tree part is made out of those fruit slice candies. Thomas thought it was really cool. I thought it was pretty gross.

Hope your Christmas was lovely!
oxox

Lisa graduated! And other updates on our life

Amazing clouds -- taken from BYU's law parking lot

Before I get started on us, I want to express my sorrow for the tragic shooting in Connecticut on Friday. I ache for that community and the many families who lost their precious little ones. I think many factors contributed to its culmination but I know of only one way to find peace in its wake: through Jesus Christ and His infinite atonement. My familiarity with the words of some of His servants helps me, though mournful, to gain needed perspective and hope. You can find comfort in these talks, too.

Thomas took this photo in Western Utah (west of Tooele I believe) while I was driving on our trip back to Utah after Thanksgiving

With finals wrapping up last week, I am officially finished with my undergraduate degree at BYU! Grades aren't officially in yet, but I have a hunch that I passed all of my classes this semester.

Speaking of classes, thank you to any and all of you who helped me with my family life education project. Partially thanks to you, I earned my highest ever grade in that class - 99.67%! My groupmates and I made a pretty good team and turned out a great project.

Now that I'm done with school, our future is a little up in the air. We figure we'll move out of Utah within the next year sometime, and we are planning to head to a west coast state. For now, though, we'll just be around and continue working at our jobs. We'll let you know if we figure anything else out.

Snowy day in Provo

Since our last post, Thomas got a haircut and had the beard shaved off. People's reactions are so funny - people in the ward still comment how they weren't sure who that guy was sitting by me but then realized it was indeed Thomas.

Coincidentally, this is what Thomas looks like with a handlebar mustache...

We had a pretty big snowstorm in the middle of November. Since there were still leaves on many trees, and because the snow that came was wetter (=heavier) than normal Utah snow, a lot of branches (big ones, too) broke off the trees around Provo. Our yard was a disaster. We did a lot of cleanup and our upstairs neighbors helped.

We spent a nice Thanksgiving week in California. We visited Elizabeth and her family for a weekend (where we met our nephew Nasuikau for the first time), and then spent some time with my family.

Elizabeth and Saki

Mere did my hair...

We made fruit pizza. Glenn decorated his to look like a car!

Nasuikau is a happy little guy!

We got to spend a day in the Bay Area with my aunt and some cousins that I don't think I've seen since our wedding.

I love these people :o)

We also got to spend an evening with another aunt and cousin. 

Mom, Aunt Lucy, Gail

Thanksgiving itself was pretty low-key with mostly just my family and their new(ish) neighbor. That evening, a friend of Morgan came over for a little while.

Scrumptious desserts made by my mom & sister. Morgan makes a mean pumpkin pie and cheesecake. My mom tried out a pumpkin-pecan pie this year.

Morgan, my dad, and Morgan's friend played us some music.

Purrl

Zip

Over the course of the week we got to see some other friends too, like Monica and her family and my friend Lanessa and a bunch of the ward I grew up in.

BFFs!

Unfortunately, we both ended up getting sick and felt crummy for most of our visit.

Morgan had a captivated audience when she made balloon animals for Mere & Glenn!

We celebrated Thomas' birthday early while there.

When we got back I had 2 more weeks of classes. I was very busy finishing final projects like my temple mosaic.

This was a much more involved project than I had planned on.

We went to an Italian Choir production for FHE one Monday. Samuel was part of the choir and did a solo. It was a lot of fun and got us in the Christmas spirit! We love beautiful music.

These are the guys in the choir. There were a lot more girls.

My last day of classes coincided with Thomas' birthday. I surprised him by coming home between classes (which I'd never done before) and cleaning the house, wrapping presents, baking a Bûche de Noël & 2 loaves of bread, and putting up the Christmas tree. Some family members and I went in on a server kit for him. It was really fun trying to keep it a secret for him! He understood the bigger picture once he opened a couple of the presents. He got right to work doing whatever one does with a server that night (meanwhile, I grouted my mosaic).

You can't really open a computer case as a gift and not realize what all the other things are likely going to be :o)

Bûche de Noël

I need to work on the frame, but the mosaic itself is complete :o)

This past week my little sister got her mission call! She will be serving in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We are so excited for her! She will be an excellent missionary and I think she will love Louisiana.

Merry Christmas!
oxox