World Travelers

In the past month and a half we have traveled a lot, just short day or weekend trips, but so much fun. 

Boise:

First we took a Saturday to go to Boise to see the temple open house before it was rededicated. We invited Josh's sister but she ended up having some school stuff and couldn't come, so it was just the three of us. 

 We realized that temple open houses are so much busier on Saturdays, we had a bit of a wait and by the end Sophie was so tired, but she did good inside and it was such a special experience. 

Jackson Hole:

A couple weekends ago we went up to Jackson Hole, Josh's family usually has a cabin rented there the week after Thanksgiving and so Thursday when Josh got off work we headed up. 

We like the toy store downtown. 

We tried a new place for lunch on Friday, Pearl St. Marketplace. It was so so yummy and the workers were so nice. They gave Sophie a free smoothie because they had mixed too much for someone. Just looking at the pics makes me want some more of that burrito that Josh had. 

Bunches of his family was there which was fun. We tried to get a pic of all the kids on the steps... it wasn't a very smooth process. I can just imagine how taking whole family pics is going to go. 

Salt Lake City:

Salt Lake for the Christmas lights is one of my favorite holiday things to do. Friday we headed down there. We went to IKEA first and bought our first big furniture purchase ever! It's a dresser for Sophie's room. I was so sad there because the restaurant was closed for a holiday celebration, but we had fun anyway, my friend Cambrai met us there and wandered through that huge store with us. 

Josh had done a little research before we went and found out about this beautiful cathedral a few blocks up from the temple lights. We got to town early and walked up there. It was beautiful both inside and out... worth the walk. 

Another friend from high school of mine, Casey and her roommate met us at the new mall across from the temple. It's a beautiful mall and had lights of its own. 

When it got dark we got to the best part, Temple Square's Christmas lights. Last year when we came it was so cold we didn't see a lot, we just tried not to freeze. This time was warmer and so we spent plenty of time seeing all the pretty lights. I always leave there feeling more in the Christmas spirit then before. 

The Perfect Love Song

Since we moved in our bedroom has looked like this:

(I thought for sure I had a picture, I guess I will just tell you, the walls had shiny striped wallpaper, it looked like wrapping paper Update (Jan 29, 2013): We found a picture with the wallpaper in the background, but that's as good as we could find for now)

It's been on my list for a while of things to do, finally I just started ripping the paper off, there was another layer of wallpaper below it, yay for me! Anyway, I had a few ideas in my head for what to do when it all came off, but the one that stuck to me was to have the lyrics of a love song handwritten on the wall behind out bed. Romantic, right?

The next trick was to pick a song. If I was to say Josh and I had a song it would be I'm yours by Jason Marz. 

If you don't know the song, or don't want to listen to it, I will tell you that although some/most of the lyrics are really cute and perfect, I really didn't need my wall to say "I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror, bending over backwards just to try and see it clearer." Because I think that would just be strange. 

Other songs that graced the idea list were:

• "When You Say Nothing At All," by Alison Krauss or Adele- most of you probably know this song
• "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson 

• "Breathing" by Lifehouse

I am hanging on every word you say

and even if you don't want to speak tonight

that's alright, alright with me

'cause I want nothing more than to sit 

outside heaven's door and listen to you breathing

is where I want to be

• "Stay Here Forever" by Jewel

There were a few other choices too, but those and the ones I listed all had at least one reason they wouldn't work- Josh didn't want country, or it is my parent's song and that would be weird, or it just didn't feel right. 

My sister-in-law was going to do the writing for me because she is super artistic and I knew would do a wonderful job and she was moving soon so I had to get on the ball about picking a song, finally I decided that because no song fit us perfectly I would just write him a love note to have written on the wall. 

Here's how it turned out (forgive me for the mess of our bedroom):

I am pretty happy how it turned out. Shout out to Kami for doing the painting for me. Some ladies at church heard about it and were impressed that Josh and I are still so in love to do something like this, but I plan to always stay that in love with him. 

What song would you guys put on your walls?

Am I a Free Spirit?

So the other night for some reason I was telling Josh about a couple sweatshirts that I had in high school that I was sad when they got lost, seriously though, I have no idea how this came up. Anyway, one of them was a pink sweatshirt that said 'free spirit' on it. It's not the same as the one in this picture but I'm just using it as an example. 

He asked me why I liked things that said things like free spirit on them. 

I thought about it for a moment. Was I a free spirit or did I just want to be one? I mean if my own husband doesn't think I am a free spirit then I guess it must not be true. 

I settled for the explanation that although I tend to do things more traditionally, like get married young and start a family, I don't want anybody to think I was doing them just because it was expected, I always do things because I want to, not because I am told to or expected to. In my mind that makes me a free spirit. 

Josh said that it was just being a punk. 

I think we agree to disagree on that one. 

Darling Girl

 Darling Daddy took Darling Sophie to the little train near the zoo a while ago, while I was cleaning the carpets.

 She also loves to talk on the phone, she likes the home phone better for some reason. She has the same habit as her parents, walking around while she talks.

A little more personal

I've decided that my blog is boring, I need to be a little more personal and not just write about the big things Sophie does. If you don't know, although I think we are friendly and easy to approach, Josh and I are kind of private with our own matters. So here I go trying to be more open.

So the past few days have been overwhelmingly busy. I have been running like crazy from here to there with the disappointment from something weighing on my heart. Not that my days have been bad, on the contrary, I like busy, filled days, but I wondered if anybody was noticing the work I was doing or if I was getting anywhere.

Last night, really late, Sophie threw up. My sister-in-law who has been staying with us for a bit heard her cries and was nice enough to watch Sophie in the bathtub while I cleaned up the mess. I felt on the verge of tears for so many reasons, the stress of the day, worry for Sophie, and the grossness of what I was cleaning up.

Then I got the sweetest tender mercy, in my mind and in my heart came the phrase "you are doing the Lord's work." I recognized it from this video:

I needed that reminder that the Lord knows what I am doing. I am not alone and the things I am doing, even when hard, gross, or mundane is what I need to be doing in my life. Raising Sophie is the best thing I could be doing with my time.

I love Sophie and I love being a mother. I also want everyone to know how much I love Josh, what a good husband and father her is. Sophie calls him "darling dad" and loves him so much. He is the most attentive and loving father.

A special place

Before a LDS temple is dedicated and opened they give an open house where members of the public can tour the new building and learn about the temple. About a month ago Sophie and I went to Brigham City, UT to meet up with a friend of mine. The Brigham City temple doing it's open house so we got to take Sophie inside with us for a tour. 

 It was so special to take Sophie inside, there were a few sweet moments where I had to wonder what she was feeling.

My Sophie loves the temple and she recognizes them in Idaho Falls and Rexburg, she asks if we can go again. The temple is a special place to me and I am glad that she recognizes that too. Temple FAQs

Beach Pics

from way back... our Oregon trip again

While we were in Oregon my family exchanged gifts. There were some pretty creative ones. My mom made Sophie a ABC book for us to look at during church. 

 I made Seth a Seth's game of life. I replaced some of the squares with things that have happened to him or inside jokes between the two of us.

 Seth gave Josh some Mario decorations for our game room downstairs and made him some man-candles, which are candles that are scented with manly smells like bbq and WD40.

 Krista made me these cute placemats. I love them.

 Abby's gift was super, it was a redneck bumbo chair, my dad made it. I don't know how much Abby liked it but we all got a good laugh out of it.