Another year done...

I cannot believe another year has gone!  It has been a very interesting year, full of challenges and change, but life is good!  I still count my blessings everyday and try not to be such a whiner.  There is ALWAYS something to be thankful for, no matter what!  We had a white Christmas for the first time and lived to tell about it!  I look forward to 2014 and the opportunities that await us. Clif and Lindsay arrive tomorrow for about 24 hours and then they will be back at BYU Idaho.  Amanda and the boys get home next Sunday and life will be back to normal for everyone.  We are finishing off our year with some frozen dinners and slush (the slush was Dave's request) and we will watch a movie and go to bed before all the noise.  Guess we are getting old.  Happy New Year!

Saw this and found it fitting for the new year...I am ready to write!

It's so quiet here...

I cannot believe how quiet this house is!  With Amanda and the boys in Georgia, it is just me and Dave here.  We have been very lazy and non-productive!  Not proud of it, but it has felt nice to not have to do anything.  I don't think I'm quite ready for the empty nest...   We have gone to the temple and to the movies and today we started our jigsaw puzzle.  Next week we will be going to the special art exhibit at BYU and probably some more movies, maybe a DI shopping trip too!  Clif and Lindsay will be coming on the new year so we will do something fun with them too...  We did get the dried up Christmas tree out today, so I guess we have been a "little" productive!  I am posting today because I wanted to write about my Book of Mormon challenge... 

 Joel challenged me to read the Book of Mormon in 12 weeks and to find all the names or titles of Christ as I was reading.  It was a great challenge and I enjoyed it very much!  You can read the Book of Mormon in 12 weeks if you read 6 1/2 pages every day.  Not hard at all!  Some days I read even more pages because I was in the middle of a great story!  I took my yellow scripture marker and highlighted every name or title that I could find.  And I wrote them down.  When all was said and done I found around 56 or so.  I thought I had done so well.  After talking with Joel on Christmas, turns out I didn't do well at all!  He found 81!  BUT, the thing is, Elder Oaks in a BYU devotional said there are nearly 100!  Wow...I missed a lot!  So of course I have started the Book of Mormon over again and am looking harder.  But this time around I am using a pink scripture marker and am highlighting all references to women and making a list.  (Another challenge that I found on pinterest and have challenged myself to do).  I won't be finishing in 12 weeks because I am purposely going slower and looking for what I missed before.  It was a great challenge ~ Thanks Joel!

Merry Christmas!

Today is Christmas!  It does not feel like it at all.  Amanda left for the flight to Georgia at 4 a.m. and we did not hear a thing!  We didn't wake up until 9 a.m.!  It was so quiet.  I did some laundry and we puttered around the big, quiet house just waiting for our 2 o'clock Skype time with Elder McKinney!  He texted us a little after 2 and said his companion was still skyping (he got to go first because of the time difference, his family is in Maryland) so it would be a little longer.  We finally connected about 2:30.  It was so fun to see his face and hear his voice!  And I can't believe it but we talked for 2 hours!  Eric and Randa's family was coming for dinner and they arrived at the end to chat with him for a few minutes too!  It was so fun.  BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER.  It was very fun to see pictures all over facebook today of computer screens with missionary faces and all their families saying how fun it was to chat with them!  Elder McKinney was included on that!  After our phone call we had a fun evening with Eric's family, opening some more gifts and having a nice dinner.  Then just chatting and watching the kids play.  I am so glad to live near family!  I can't believe 2013 is almost over...our next excitement will be Clif and Lindsay arriving on New Year's day for a couple of days before they head back up to Rexburg.  The sunset was shining so pretty on the mountains (I don't mind the snow so much when the sun is shining!) and you can't tell from the picture, but it was a very lovely pinkish color.  A beautiful day! Merry Christmas!

 

Yes, we HAD to get Carson a lava lamp after we saw how much he loved ours!

Missionary Mom...and Christmas morning...

Monday is usually P-day for Elder McKinney.  We drove his Christmas packages out to the mission hom Monday morning so he would get them that afternoon.  We also took a tray of goodies for the people in the office.  One of the senior sisters working there said, "for us?"  She was so excited!  Her and another sister were digging into them before we got out the door!  It was funny.  I have been waiting all week to see if Joel had been transferred or if he had a new companion.  We knew transfers were last week so we have been waiting and wondering!  We drove home and anxiously awaited his normal Monday email.  It never came.  I was a little depressed about it.  I knew we would hear from him for sure on Christmas, but probably the next day, because it has happened before.  Sure enough, an email came Tuesday morning saying their P-day had been switched because of the holiday and that it would be that way next week also!  Good to know!  He sent a few pictures (one of his boot that got covered in mud as he stepped on some ice only to go all the way through in a big hole!) so that was fun.  He did NOT get transferred, still in Kearns and still with Elder Cleveland.  The mission president wants the companionships together longer and in the same area to build more trust with the members (they are totally working with the members now and not doing any tracting).  He said he would skype around 2 p.m. tomorrow...so we are REALLY looking forward to that!!  He got his paper tree from the ward here with messages on "ornaments" so that is hanging on his door.  

The boys have been at Dale's for the week end and Amanda called them this morning to tell them Santa had been here (a day early since they are leaving at 4 a.m. tomorrow for Georgia).  They came over around 10 and we had Christmas!  Christmas is so much more fun with little children!!  We ushered them into the hallway first so Amanda could get the video going before they came in.  It was fun to watch Jacob so methodically open each present and then want to look at it and play with it before moving on to the next present.  David on the other hand ripped through those presents as fast as he could!  Jacob was enjoying the journey.  When he opened his "motorcycle" (his cousin Carson has one and he LOVED it, would hardly get off of it when we were there) he said, "A motorcycle like Carson's!  We can take it to his house and have races!"  He was very excited!  Santa brought David the walkie talkies he wanted and the Legos Jacob asked for.  Everyone was happy!  We then had "snowman" pancakes and played and played.  So here's some pics of our "Christmas Morning" a day early.  Have I said how excited I am to have a MANTLE to hang our stockings!?  Love it!

 Opening Stockings...both parents taking video!

Merry Christmas from the McKinneys and Stewarts!!

Temple Square lights!

All my friends in Clovis were posting on Facebook how they went to Candy Cane Lane or Christmas Tree Lane, and I told Dave I was sad I couldn't go this year.  His comment, "YOU get to go to Temple Square!"  He was right...no more complaints!  We had planned to go on Thursday but the weather was so bad, snowy, rainy, bad, bad storm.  We knew it wouldn't be a fun night to see the lights.  They even cancelled the Tabernacle Choir practice and This is the Place shut down for the day!  It was crazy weather!  So we went the next night, Friday.  It was very cold, but no snow or rain!  We caught the Frontrunner train in Orem and rode it out to Salt Lake.  That was very fun!  We met Eric and three of his kids there (Randa and Kai were home sick).  It was sooooo cold!  But it was still fun to walk around and see all the beautiful lights!  We tried to get a few pictures but of course none of them do it justice.  And getting all 5 kids to look at the camera was near impossible!  Jackson finally gave up and went to sleep.  We went in the visitor's center to warm up and eat a little snack, then caught the Frontrunner back to Orem.  We had to wait half an hour for the train (the one we planned to catch went out of service right at that time!) and it was so cold standing out there waiting!  The boys did so good and never complained!  It felt so good when our train finally came and we could get on and sit down!  We got home very late but it was a fun night!  I want to do it again!  Thanks Eric, Makayela, Carson and Jackson for joining us in our adventure!  It was fun reminiscing how we were there last year when they turned the lights on.  I want to do that next year.  My favorite lights are the red trees by the Assembly Hall...they are just beautiful!!  It's all very beautiful...I recommend it if you are in town!