Gordon B. Hinckley, 1910-2008

President Hinckley died tonight, the news is reporting. they said that he passed away of "incidents related to old age." 97 years old. did he seem that old to you? he had such a young, vibrant, humorous spirit, it kinda seemed like he would live forever.

a few of my favorite memories:

just this past conference, when elder eyring was made president eyring. president hinckley walked up to president eyring and "knighted" him with his cane. ha!

when i was 19 years old, singing at the dedication for the new BYU library, and he was just a few feet from me. as i was singing with the women's chior, he looked directly at me and kept his gaze there for a few moments. some of the most powerful moments of my life.

my faith is stronger and i am a better person for having been led and taught by this man. he truly was the Prophet of God on the earth today, and while i am going to miss him and his sweet sense of love and humor so much, i am so excited for the homecoming celebration he is receiving right now. now he gets to be back with his sweet wife again, and i know how proud heavenly father and the savior must be of him and how gladly they welcome him back to their presence. i bet he's so happy to be home.

TTR

i would like to introduce you to my latest obsession. it's a game called "TICKET TO RIDE" by the compay "days of wonder." it is seriously the only board game that i have enjoyed playing years. it is so much fun. and as of last night, i'm going to officially say that i'm pretty good at it.

a friend introduced this game to a bunch of us at the new year's eve overnighter, and i have been playing it as much as possible ever since. i even got david to play on my birthday, which was some kind of miracle. he likes games even less than i do.

if you've never played it before, go to your local game shop, have a few friends over and get going. if you HAVE played it before, you are in trouble for not telling me about it and inviting me to play. but i will forgive you after i play you and beat you. :)

(truthfully, i'm not that obsessed with winning. but it's REALLY fun when i do!)

so sad

seriously, does anyone in hollywood stand a chance of turning out normal and having a happy life? i've been reading about heath ledger's life and death for the past 24 hours, and it makes me so sad. especially reading how he couldn't sleep, and would wander NYC trying to find ways to fill his time. that would be so frustrating and exhausting. david and i watched the "dark night" trailer on the internet when it came out and he gave us chills. such a talent, and a young dad, too. his poor little girl. so sad.

december part 3: CA friends

while we were in CA, i got to see some of our good friends that have since left us and utah behind.

shauna and her husband todd live about 20 minutes (less if david is driving on a quiet saturday morning) from the in-laws. shauna and i have been friends since freshman year at BYU, which was somehow 10.5 years ago. weird, so weird. anyway, we went to the best restaurant (the black cow) near their house and got the most delish dish-- their french toast. YUM. it's kind of a tradition now, i guess. we love to visit them and eat this food as often as possible. afterwards, we went to shauna's house and let the kids go crazy together for a bit longer.

(so blurry, this photo! boo.)



the kids were so funny together. i think owen and ava scared nicole and ty at first... but they eventually warmed up to them and they were all BFF's by the end of the morning.

that same night we headed to westlake village to see matt and brittney, and steph and blake and their two kids evy and dane. it was SO great to see them all and catch up. david, blake, and matthew grew up together. they were thinking how crazy it is that they were the ages of our kids when they were first running around together, and now they're all in their 30's. time flies!

(why did no one tell me how awful i looked that night??? it was a long day, but come on... i look like i belong in a hospital.) that gorgeous girl in the middle will be delivering their first baby in about a month-- don't worry, she is that teeny and beautiful in person, too! (love ya brit!) and stephanie always has it pulled together, despite the fact that i think her evy is as busy as owen and ava put together. i love that i love these wives-- it makes getting together SO much fun for me, too! in fact, i may love it a teensy bit more than david, even. here's the gang at golden spoon.

and now, december is complete. if i had pictures of our stay at the company lodge in heber for new years, i would post them. lucky for you, we were having too much fun to even think about the camera. :)

december, part 2

ok, going on with the december events:

Santa Barbara Zoo

here's a nice little family shot. that man ruining the shot in the background (kidding!) is my father-in-law, Vance. or, as the kids call him, "Chief." amazing that both kids are smiling. they were not in a smiling mood, they were in a very SILLY mood. i think we promised them many tasty candies to get those cheesers.

owen loved the leopard. little did we know what he does once he gets on that rock and crouches... that is a "toilet" of sorts for him. good thing i didn't capture the next few seconds for all posterity.

we paid extra money for ava to be able to pinch this giraffe's lip. not really. we fed the giraffe carrots, so i'm not sure exactly what is going on in this picture. if any of the 4 of us was going to try anything unauthorized with the giraffe, it would most definately be ava. it was fun though! i DID want to bathe in anti-bacterial hand sanitizer when we were finished... somehow i refrained.

the silly faces they were doing when i asked them to smile. hence the need for promises of diverse and delicious sugary treats in the afore-mentioned picture. aren't they lovely???

A Day at the Park

aah-- THIS was a real treat. leave it to "nana" (samantha, the MIL) to come up with the best way to spend an afternoon: we called it the "vortex of death." we put the kids in here then roll it around and see who throws up first! note: this pose did not work. owen's knee went into ava's forhead and she cried.

note: this pose did not work. her legs weren't long enough, so she fell out and hurt her neck and cried.

the only one who could do it perfectly was owen. he was the exact right size, and never wanted us to stop. unfortunately, we did NOT get a picture of him in the thing!

i was jealous that owen was having so much fun. it took about 3 tries, but i figured out a way to get in the thing and try it out myself. see footage below.

seriously, that thing is nuts! i felt like i had gone about 80 yards in that space of time. something about the whole surface of your body doing the traveling at various moments... i thought i was about to run into the playground equipment. that thing is NOT made for adults. not that i'm putting myself in that category, i suppose...

(still more to come!)

WHERE do they GET this stuff?!?!?

ever since ava was about this age....

she has loved for me to fill the sink with bubbles. i give her cups and egg beaters and basters and all sorts of things. she stays busy for literally at LEAST an hour.

so just now, she just asked me if i could fill up the sink with bubbles.

i look at the sink, full of dishes. i look at the dishwasher, waiting to be unloaded.

so i tell her "not right now," because i am not in the mood to do one of my least favorite chores.

so ava pulls THIS out: "but mom, my heart says to make bubbles! i have to listen to my heart!"

i laughed so hard, then i unloaded the dishwasher, and loaded up the dirty dishes. how can i deny her the very thing her heart is telling her to do?!?!?

a december to remember

we had such a great time at david's parents' house for christmas. we got there the saturday before christmas, and we had an impromptu photo shoot the next day before church.

a few years ago, samantha was in charge of a stake activity called "A Night in Bethlehem," so she had all these great costumes. we decided to do a "shepherd's dinner," where we ate food like grapes, cheese, bread, pears, etc... simple things they might have eaten on that first chrismas eve. it went over great with samantha, the kids and i... let's just say that david, his dad and his brother were LESS than thrilled at having to dress up and eat "leftovers" by candlelight. party poopers. lucky for them, all the pics of them dressed up are on sam's camera, not mine!!!

is ava the cutest little angel?!? owen loved dressing up like a shepherd. oh, and he doubled as joseph when we did the nativity. they are the cutest kids. but i'm not biased...

ava on christmas morning, looking down at all the presents from the top of the stairs.

owen LOVES his optimus prime computer.

ava is into The Wizzard of Oz right now, so my parents sent her a dress up kit. she makes a decent dorothy. we LOVE toto in the basket!!!

more to come...