Friends

I wish people would tell you what they want or need you to do. I hate sitting back and watching friends go through hard times. I rack my brain to try to figure out what to do. Send an encouraging, “You can do it” email? Call them and leave a message letting them know that you were thinking of them? Make them cookies? Set up a time to hang out? It is so hard to know.  My intent is not to bother them or give them someone else to stress about. I just want to be there for them.

The problem is that we are all different and our needs/wants greatly vary.  But all people, no matter how similar they may seem, are so different! Yet we are all the same. We all want someone to care and magically be able to know what we need of them as friends. But most of the time we don’t even know what will make us feel better.

But the truth is, there are important moments in each of our lives when we need to cry ourselves to sleep, hash it out to our journal, or just think about what is going on in our lives by ourselves. We must pass through these hard times alone.  It’s a time where we grow and progress, or at least put ourselves back together.  

So I conclude that “being there for them” means that we are willing and ready to help them when they are ready for you. This means you might have to sit back and watch them struggle and cry. As much as I want to, I can not force my “help” on them.

Therefore, my dear friends, here is my commitment to you:

 “I care about you. I want to be there for you. I don’t like to see you sad. I know that you might not know what to tell me to do to help you feel better, but I’ll try as many things until you do. I’ll talk through what is worrying you until we’re blue in the face (and then some). I’ll take you out to dinner so you can feel spoiled and eat some good food. I’ll give you hugs and tell you that you are good enough and let you cry. I’ll sit and watch a funny movie with you to help you forget about how you feel. I’ll put on my running shoes and run a few miles with you until you feel better. Or if you just need time to yourself, know that I’ve been praying for you and wishing you the best. Just know that I love you and I am ready to do whatever it takes to make you feel better. I'm here.”

“What’s New with YOU?”

            First of all, we would like to apologize for not updating our blog for quite a while. We appreciate the chance to keep up to date with all of you, and we know how antsy we get when people we love (YOU!) do not update for MONTHS! So, we will try harder to be better at keeping those we love informed on what we are up to. We have kept ourselves busy these past few weeks. We both have logged countless hours at work.  But we are grateful for our weekends together where we can recharge and get things done.

Since the weather has tried to be nicer, we have been able to start hiking. We love it! A few weekends ago, we went on a fun night hike with our friends Curtis & Shae. It was such a beautiful night! We can’t wait to do more of that kind of outdoorsy things this summer.

We planted our first garden! It’s so cute! We went to the plant store and we were astonished at all the different kinds of tomatoes there were! We decided to get three different kinds and experiment a little. We also go some cucumbers and peas. We are now eagerly waiting for them to be ready to eat. We’ll keep you updated!

We have also been working hard to get into shape and take advantage of being able to run outside now. We don’t exactly LOVE running, but we do enjoy doing it together and feel the results of a good workout.  We are signed up to run a 5k at the end of the month. Here’s the link if you feel like joining us!

 http://intermountainhealthcare.org/communitysupport/giving/uvfoundation/events/af-half-marathon/pages/race.aspx

This past weekend we went up to Green River, Wyoming. Christopher worked on many sewing machines to make all the quilters in Wyoming happy again. There was a big quilting convention called “Quilting on the Green” and so there were lots of sweet ladies waiting for their machines to work smoothly again. While we were there, we were invited to a thing called a “Trunk Show”.  Melissa thought that Christopher would enjoy this event and said that we are excited to go only to find out it was a few ladies showing off many of their quilts.  Surprisingly, it was pretty interesting. Here are a few that caught our attention.

We’ve also been experimenting with some new recipes. The latest and greatest one that we have made is Pig Cake. It is easy to make and deliciously good. Melissa got the recipe from the Pioneer Woman website. We just love it! You’ll have to check it out and try some of the recipes for your self.                          http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/01/pig-cake/

That's all for now. Check back soon because we have lots of fun things planned.

Refinishing Our Piano

We have refinished our piano! It was a LONG process, but now it is over! We bought the piano in December, but we knew that it would be quite the process and we finally set aside time to get it done. When we first bought the piano, we envisioned stripping off all the paint and staining the wood.

*We searched for a "before" piano shot, but we don't have one. sorry!*

We spent hours and hours stripping the 5 layers of paint off, sanding down the wood, priming the wood to be painted, and then painting two coats of paint and replacing all the tops of the keys. However, we quickly realized that it had so many different colors of wood. We then decided to paint it black. The construction site took over our kitchen.



Outside to use the sander





Inside our kitchen ready to be primed



Primed :)



However, with our hands busy, we were able to listen to the prophets and apostles of God speak to us in General Conference. We loved the talks and loved learning new things to work on. We are excited to use the talks for our FHE lessons for the next six months. We are so grateful to have continuing revelation from our Heavenly Father to guide and direct us in this crazy, yet wonderful life.

We wearingly finished the last coat of paint and were grateful for the chance to make some good process on the piano. It was a good experience in which we were again reaffirmed that we work really good together as a team and that sometimes we bit off a little more than we should.

We are happy to have our piano back.

 

 

Mexican Riviera Cruise

Cruising is the best way to vacation! We had such a fun trip! We were on vacation for almost a week and a half, but it still didn’t feel long enough!

We were so excited to go on our cruise and spend lots of time with each other. We were able to visit some great friends in LA before we shipped out of the port at Long Beach.  We were on the Carnival Splendor ship and we couldn’t believe how big and beautiful the boat was!

We also had a great big room with a window! It was fun to watch the waves and see the ports from out our window. Our room steward also made us cute towel animals in our room each night!

Our first stop was Cabo San Lucas. We had to ride these little tender boats to the pier. Melissa thought they were so fun. At Cabo, we decided to go parasailing. We got into a little canoe with a motor and were taken to the boat that did the parasailing. It was a little scary having to jump from one boat to another while the boat was still moving!!! But it was totally worth it!

 







 






 






 











We also LOVED these guys that dressed up like statues! They were so cool!

The next day we woke up and we were in Puerto Vallarta! It was such a fun little town. We went on a city tour and rode in a van up steep cobblestone roads.  Our tour guide was Francisco and he was great! We were also offered tequila. We told them that we don’t drink and they said, “Wow, you must be rich!” We also found another impressive guy that was covered in sand. Melissa felt sorry for him but Christopher was totally impressed. We also stopped at the Wal-Mart there just to see how different it was.

Then we were on our way back to Long Beach. We had a few days at sea where we slept a lot, ate a lot, and enjoyed some shows that the boat put on. Our favorite thing to do was to go to dinner. Each night of the cruise, all of the guests had the same table and same server for a very elegant meal. Each night the menu changed and the food never disappointed. Christopher loved the all you can eat lobster, shrimp, and snails, and Melissa loved the cream of fruit soups that varied each night. And we couldn’t get enough of the amazing chocolate melting cake!!!!

We had such a fun time together. We can’t wait for our next cruise to bring our friends and family with us!!!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Weekend of Love ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Valentine's Day is a funny holiday. To us, it is a day to remind you to remind your special someone that you love them. It does seem funny to need a day to remind us to express our love for the most important people in our lives, but if it helps spread the love for some people, then we are all for it. It seem that through the years it has gotten much more complicated than that. It has definitely become over commercialized. Before we were married, we had a love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day. It was just another reminder that we hadn't found "the one" yet. And not that we are married, it is a little weird to have another day to love the heck out of your spouse. Don't get us wrong, any excuse we have to celebrate our love, we will jump at! We'll take any chance to eat good food, buy each other thoughtful gifts, and spend more time together.

"Every day you make me proud. 

But today you get a card."

 - 500 Days of Summer

Fruit Pizza for Christopher

                                       

Melissa's Beautiful Flowers

 

 

 

 

 

As we looked forward to spending our first Valentine’s Day together, we didn’t really know what to expect but only hoped it would bring us closer together. We decided to celebrate on Friday, February 12 when we had our days off together. We both have been worrying for months to figure out what we can do to express how much we love each other. We was excited to have a whole day off together. However, when the day got here, we didn't really want to get dress up, go to a fancy restaurant, or fight any crowds. All we wanted to do was be together. We rented a few movies and spent the entire day watching them. At first we felt bad because it seemed too low key for our first Valentine's Day. But then we realized that we spent it together and it was a day that reminded us how much we love each other and that's all that really matters!

So, Happy Valentine's Day 

to you and your sweetheart, no matter how you choose to spend it! 

 

Eat, Pray, Love

When we heard about the movie Eat Pray Love, we were curious and decided that it would be fun to read the book before we watched the movie.

We enjoyed reading about the new places she was travelling to. We laughed at her word choices and her humor. However, we worry that many women will read this book and feel that in order to get results like she did, to find peace with yourself,  they must get out of the relationship they are in. This is not always the case. Then after she left her relationship for no apparent reason other than she "was not happy" then jumped right into another that and the whole rest of the book she is missing and regreting the loss of this "New Relationship" that makes one wonder if she got out of the relationship just for this new one.  We feel that this is the very time that you need to work on your marriage which will bring a sense of peace that you are searching for.  It is not possible for everyone to escape the world to a remote place for a YEAR and not worry about money or family.  If you looked at it as simply a travel book with a story line, it was ok, but it you looked to it for guidence to happiness.  Then you should probably look elsewhere.

  

Pictures from Google search of movie

             

         What usually happens when you read a book before you watch a movie is that you find you make up a movie in your head and then go see the movie and are really disappointed in how they portrayed it. Most of the time, you like the movie you made up in your head better. Because of the time restrictions of movies, her time in each place seemed more like a week rather than the four months she was really there. Relationships that were developed in the book lacked depth and understanding in the movie. There were a few important conversations that completely came out differently in the movie. However, we loved the directors’ choice of some of the key actors in the movie.

We were able to find some ideas that we really like. We realize the importance of working hard to get what you want, the great impact of friends (even when you would rather be alone), and sometimes a change of scenery is nice to clear your mind. Once again, we feel that you don't need to flee to some foreign place to "find yourself". We feel that our faith, our role as a husband or wife, and our relationship with our Heavenly Father help us understand who we are and helps us find peace in our homes and within ourselves.  However, I do believe that sometimes it might take some time to reevaluate and reprioritize your life. 

If we wrote a book, we would have to call it We Eat, We Pray, and We Love....just sayin' :)

Our New Life in Our Cute New Home

The last few months have been so wonderfully busy. Who would have known life could be this great?! We decided that after getting settled in, we needed to start a blog to share with others what we have been up to. We got married, moved into a cute duplex, began decorating it, and even got a piano! Decorating posed some new challenges at first, but we are starting to get the hang of it. We got a new bedroom set, couches for the living room, washer & dryer, and a new TV. We've kept ourselves busy by refinishing our piano  (pictures to come :)

For a little preview as to what is to come, 2011 is full of fun plans for some great vacations, adventures, and possibly some very life-changing decisions.