MM: New Beginnings

I'm so excited for 2016! I'm just sure it's going to be a great year full of awesomeness! (Sorry, we may have been watching too much Kung Fu Panda at our house.)

One thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately as I've been setting my goals is my Savior. During Christmas, the church came out with a video that asked the question, "What would life be like without a Savior?"

This is the video if you want to watch it. It made some points that I had never really thought of before.

One that is sticking out this morning is the question, "What would it be like to make a mistake and to have no hope of the mistake every being forgiven or forgotten?"

Sunday morning, when I stayed home from church because I was pretty sick, I had a dream that I was pretty angry with one of my brother-in-laws. I was being pretty rude, and in the dream I thought, "I really should apologize, but I'm still too angry!" When I woke up, I was really glad it was just a dream and had never happened. I'm not usually deliberately rude to people, and I would have felt really bad if that dream had been reality. It may have irreparably damaged my relationship with my brother-in-law forever.

In 2015 I made plenty of mistakes. I missed lots of goals, and fell short of the mark. I often did my best, but occasionally, I wasn't even trying.

I am so grateful that every new day, every new week, every new month, and every new year, we can start over. I'm so grateful for new beginnings. Every time we wake up, we can choose to do better and to try harder. We can choose to let go of the past and look forward to the future. We can do our best to repent of our mistakes and turn toward our Savior.

I'm so grateful that we can be forgiven.

I can't even imagine facing the future, knowing that I was so far removed from Heavenly Father already that there was no point in even trying. Because of Him, there is always a point. No matter who you are, what you've done, what you've been through, or the mistakes you've made, the Lord is always waiting for us to turn to Him. If we do and we truly repent, He will forgive us. We may still have to bear the consequences of our actions, but we are all His children, and He loves us very much. As long as we are trying, He will help us in the way that will be best for us.

After all, He gave us His greatest treasure, so that we all could return to live with Him again. No matter the pain that we feel, I don't think it can compare to the perfect grief and sorrow our Father felt as He watched His son suffer and die.

I know our Heavenly Father loves each of us, and our Savior came to this world so that we could return to live with Him again, as long as we choose to accept his atonement. The Lord gives us commandments because He loves us, and as we do our best, He will help us to strive toward perfection.

I know that we can all do better this year than we did last year. It IS worth it to set goals, even if previously you haven't succeeded. Set daily, weekly, and monthly goals, and you'll find that your yearly goals won't be forgotten.

Let's all do better for this new beginning in our lives!

Recap of Goals

This was my list of goals for 2015:

• Schedule every day
• Set monthly goals
• Buy a home
• Fence in Backyard
• Help Grig get his Welding Certificate
• Exercise 5x a week
• Read scriptures daily
• Memorize The Living Christ and The Family: A Proclamation to the World
• Finish and publish one novel
• January: Finish 1st draft
• February: Edit
• March-April: Re-write
• May: Edit
• June: submit to publisher

Ha ha. I didn't do so well.

On the positive side, I did accomplish some goals. 

We did buy a home, and Grig got his necessary welding certificates. I read scriptures most days, and finished the first draft of the novel. I didn't finish it by my goal time, but I've nearly finished my second draft, and once that's done, I'll be asking some people to read and edit it for me. Grig advised me to re-write it before I handed it out, and he was right. It was a good idea. I have exercised more this year, but not always consistently. 

On the negative side, I left a lot undone. 

I didn't memorize "The Living Christ" or "The Family." We didn't fence in our backyard (it is already fenced in, but we were going to redo it with a more permanent fence. Hopefully we'll be able to afford that next year. I didn't schedule every day, though I did do it often, and I forgot to set monthly goals. As you can see from my blog yesterday, the year was pretty busy. 

So, I accomplished about half of my goals. I accomplished some that I didn't know I was going to have, like help Grig find a new job, but on the whole, I can do better next year. I'll be setting new goals soon, and some of them may be repeats, but if you don't accomplish a goal, you might need to set it again. 

I've now looked at my year's goals. It gives me some ideas for what I want to accomplish next year. 

That's good, right?

Christmas Celebrations

We had a wonderful Christmas weekend.

It was super nice, because Christmas landed on Friday, so Grig ended up with a four day weekend after they decided to take Thursday off too.

We had a very busy day Thursday. We finished making and sending off our Christmas cards, and then we went around and delivered Christmas treats to our neighbors. We had a great time doing that. Grig pulled Kevin in a sled on top of the snow, and they both really enjoyed that.

Then, after we got home from that, Grig went and picked up Havelock from work. Once they returned, we packed a sleeping Kevin into the car (which promptly woke him up) and traveled to my grandmother's home for dinner and Christmas Eve celebrations.

After a wonderful concert from my cousins, we ate dinner and then acted out the nativity. We had a great time, though half-way through the concert we realized that we forgot to eat lunch. Kevin was being pretty grumpy, and once we fed him a little bit, I realized why I was feeling so hungry too.

Whoops.

After the party, we went home and got Kevin ready for bed. We took a stocking picture with all the younger people in the house.

I love this picture

Then, Arkhon helped Kevin to fall asleep so that Santa could come. 

Grig's sister and brother-in-law came and joined us around 10:00 p.m., and we hung out with them for a while before bed. 

The next morning (around 7:30 a.m.), Kevin was kicking me in the face, so I decided it was time to wake up. I said, "Kevin, Santa brought you presents."

He had been laying there half-awake, but as soon as I said that, his bright blue eyes popped open and he said, "What?!"

It was pretty cute. He helped me wake his daddy up, and then we went and looked at presents. 

Everyone was excited by their Santa gifts. After we'd looked at them all, we opened one present and then made and ate breakfast. 

I also got to skype with my younger brother who is on a mission. That was a lot of fun, but it took a while for my sound to cut on, so I couldn't hear what was going on for a while. They could hear me though, so I'm sure they had a great time listening to me say, "I can't hear you!"

After we'd finished talking to my family and eating, we finished opening presents. It took a while, because we had some very generous people, and one particular friend from Texas, send us some wonderful gifts. 

We also skyped with Grig's parents, other siblings, and grandmother in Virginia. It was good to see everyone from there as well. 

Kevin may have been a little spoiled this Christmas. :)

He sure was excited about all his gifts

He was the most excited about gummy worms that Santa brought him, a little swimming fish that he received from my Texas friend, and a shield he got from his grandma.

Grig and I were also very spoiled this holiday. I got a number of things that I am quite excited about, including all three Lion King movies and a blender. I also got some really cute sweaters from my Texan friend. She's the sweetest lady ever!

There was a point this year, that we didn't think we were going to be able to have any Christmas at all. Not only were we blessed with a wonderful Christmas, but we were able to help some other people with Christmas as well. It's been a pretty wonderful holiday.

We spent the rest of the morning/afternoon spending time with family. Around 3ish, Grig's sister and husband left and we began to pack. Our goal was to leave for Idaho by 5, but we didn't get finished loading until after 6. We had a nice ride up though, and we spent the rest of the weekend with my family. 

Kevin received "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" from his cousin, and all of the little kids really enjoyed that.

Saturday, we went to my father's school and played in the gym. Here a purposefully blurry picture I took. (I try not to show clear pictures without permission). 

We had a lot of fun. We ate and spent time together, and then, at 7:00, we went and watched the new Star Wars movie. 

It was amazing. That's all I'm going to say about it.

When we got home, Kevin was pretty tired and beginning to act sick. He coughed a lot during the night, and by the next morning, we decided he should stay home from church. Grig and I traded off staying home with him, so that we were both able to go to part of church. 

Then, after a wonderful lunch, some games, and some baby-cuddling, we headed back to Utah. 

We got home at around 8 last night. We'd had a great time, but it was good to be home. Kevin has a bit of a fever today, but he's sleeping in, so I think he'll be just fine. 

I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas! It was really good to spend time with our family. That's really what makes the holiday season wonderful!

NaNoWriMo Report

Many of you may have noticed that I was a little bit scarce on this blog during November.

Usually, it's because I was busy writing for my NaNoWriMo goal, but it was also because November ended up being a pretty crazy month.

I was really close. I knew if I didn't get most of my story written before Thanksgiving that it would be really difficult to finish while we were in Idaho with family. I did pretty well, but I didn't get as far as I wanted to.

It's hard to write when these two want your attention!

My cousin, who is very good at NaNoWriMo, came to visit during Thanksgiving weekend and we had a writing party. I'm grateful that she encouraged me, because I was able to get quite a bit of writing done last
Friday thanks to her.

By Saturday night, I was at 39,312. Since I don't write on Sundays, that meant I had to write 10,688 words on Monday (yesterday). I knew I was unlikely to finish, but I was going to do my best.

Yesterday, I typed a bit, played with Adam a bit and then wrote a bit more. By evening, I had written over 2,000 words. I had about three hours to write by the time Kevin went to bed.

I did my best, but I didn't quite make it. At 12:00 a.m., I had written 47,406. That means that yesterday, I wrote 8,094 words. So, I was pretty close, but I didn't quite make it.

There were times I could have written, and didn't, but generally when I wasn't writing, I was spending time with family. So I don't really regret the use of time.

However, as usual, NaNoWriMo has helped me do the most important thing. It has helped me establish a pattern of writing. The second draft of my story is going well, and I now have a goal to finish this draft before the end of the year.

I have a lot of blogging and catching up to do in the next week, but this post will suffice for today.

Thank you for those of you who checked up on me and asked me how the writing was going. I really appreciated the encouragement!

I'm hoping to write most days in December. A lot has been happening around here!

First Family Camping Trip

This week, we took Grig's vacation and went camping!

We couldn't really afford to go anywhere, but we've been buying a little something here and there over the last few months so we had all the equipment.

It took us until the day of to decide where we were going to go, but we finally decided on a little reservoir just 20 minutes north of us. It was our first family camping trip, and we were both pretty inexperienced at this. I had been camping before, but we'd never been in charge, so we tried to think of everything we'd need.

We brought both dogs. We debated whether or not to leave Dakota home. We didn't know if she'd be able to handle the stress of the trip, but we finally decided to bring her.

Very beautiful place

It took pretty much all day to get ready. Our original plan was to go from Monday - Thursday night. We were hoping that we wouldn't have to come back into town, except that I had a church activity on Wednesday night that I was partially in charge of.

We finally got to the campsite at about 8:00 pm. I was worried about not being near the restrooms, so we picked a little place not very far away. The mosquitoes were horrible, and if it hadn't been for the bug spray we brought, I don't think we would have made it even one day.

We had time to unpack, set up everything, and cook dinner, and then it was time for bed. We made hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. We'd bought a campfire grill, and we used it to fry the hamburgers. They tasted amazing! We followed it up with s'mores for dessert.

While Grig was away getting ready for bed, Kevin and I turned off all the flashlights and just listened to the darkness. As we did so, we heard what sounded like kids playing and carrying on. However, as I listened, I realized that it wasn't kids, it was coyotes. They were fairly far away, so it was just fun to hear them.

That night I didn't sleep well. I don't usually sleep well during the first night while camping. It was nice to have the dogs there. We knew that they'd alert us if anyone came near. (Well, actually, we knew Arkhon would alert us. Dakota is pretty deaf and mostly blind. She'll bark if Arkhon barks though.)

Tuesday, I was awake by 5:30, and it was already pretty warm. We made breakfast (it was really complicated...we had a bowl of cereal) and then I fished a little while Grig and Kevin went on a walk. I didn't catch anything, except some cute pictures.

By 9:30, we were in the water. At first, it was a little cold, but as soon as you plunged, it felt perfect.

We swam for a couple of hours, Kevin didn't really like it at first. He didn't like getting all the way wet, and after a while, he got cold. He was also tired. We made lunch. For lunch we tried to cook hotdogs with crescent roll dough on the outside. We decided we didn't like that combination as much. It would have been better with sausage in the middle. After lunch, we all took a nap in a very warm tent at about 2:00 p.m.

We woke up at about 4:00 p.m., and then we went swimming again because we were baking. This time, at the end of it, kevin was starting to splash around, and we developed a fun game where he would drop rocks and we'd try to catch them under the water. He loved it.

Grig and I took turns playing with him and swimming. Arkhon wasn't too sure about the water at first. He'd never been in water deeper than his chest. However, after we started to swim away, he began to plunge in after us, and it wasn't too long before he was becoming a real water dog.

The real surprise was Dakota. She immediately waded into the water, but at one point, when Arkhon and I were swimming away from shore, I looked back to see that she was swimming out to meet us! That was a surprise. Dakota ended up having a great time. She only really went for one good swim a day, but she seemed really happy. We were glad we brought her along.
After swimming, we ran out of bug spray. We'd been sharing our with our poor dogs, and our bottle became empty pretty quick. So, I ran to a store in the nearby town, but when I went to purchase the bug spray, I realized that Grig had my card in his wallet. The lady at the store was super trusting, and allowed me to take the mosquito spray before I paid for it. She wrote my name down instead. I quickly drove back to camp, only to discover that Grig had left his wallet at him. I left the spray and Kevin with him, and drove home quickly. I grabbed the wallet and a bit more firewood, and then drove back quickly. I got to the store at 6:50. I didn't know when they closed, and I was worried I was going to be too late. To my relief, they were still open, and I paid for our purchase.

Once I made it back, we made dinner. We tried chicken, pineapple, and onion shish-kabobs. I cut the chicken into chunks, and put pineapple and onion slices in between. We then seasoned them with Mrs. Dash, wrapped the kabobs in tin foil, and threw them into the coals. Those turned out really well. I never thought the combination would be so delicious. After dinner, Grig and Kevin went on a walk while I made peach cobbler. When they returned, we ate our dessert, which also turned out really well, and as it became dark, we went to bed.
I slept a lot better and didn't wake up until 7:30 a.m.. We had bacon and eggs for breakfast (so good!) and then we went on a walk.

There were some real advantages to bringing dogs to a campout. Here are some things I learned about it:

Advantages:
1- Dogs are great guardians. You can leave your stuff with them, and no one's going to dare to touch it. Especially if your dog is great at barking at people who come nearby.
2- When you're swimming, you have someone to swim with if your husband is watching the baby.
3- They are fun to watch play in the water.
4- You can sleep knowing that large predators are more likely to stay way.
5- They love it.

Disadvantages:
1-When you leave them, they sometimes bark in protest.
2- They get tangled up when they are tied.
3- You have to spray them with mosquito spray too, or the mosquitoes start swarming your camp.
4- You have to bring food and supplies for them as well.
5- If they aren't good at listening, you have to keep them tied the whole time. (Arkhon got a lot better at this as time went on. At first, he had a hard time disengaging his nose, but by the end, if we whistled or called, he came running. Dakota never wandered, because she is too old.)

While on our walk, we saw some rabbits, and Kevin was really excited about those. We also saw raccoon tracks.

We were running low on mosquito spray and water, so we decided that we would head home Wednesday night instead of Thursday. We ended up leaving a day early, but I think it still went really well.

After our walk, we went swimming again, and when Grig and Kevin disappeared after swimming, I decided to fish for a while.

When they got back, Kevin joined me.

We tried a lot of different types of baits, and I finally went back to powerbait. I was just about to give up, when I felt a tugging on the line. I called for Kevin and Grig to come and join me, and we pulled in a little blue gill.

Kevin loved that fish, and here is the part that Grig wanted to call:

Kevin's First Lesson with Mortality

Kevin happily took the fish back to camp. I showed him how to carry it so he didn't drag it on the ground the whole way. When he finally got the gist of it, he carried it around proudly for awhile.

Then came the tragedy. I set up a spot to gut it, and Kevin watched with interest. He was okay with I stabbed it, but when I took its head off, he lost it. He began to sob the most heart-wrenching cries. I felt really bad, but I tried to explain to him that we were going to eat it. He cried and cried. Grig comforted him while I finished preparing it, and then I hugged him as well. 

Grig was laughing a little bit, but mostly because he was raised on a farm and has had similar experiences with sheep and cattle. We grilled the fish up in butter, milk,and some garlic salt and it was delicious. When we were done, there wasn't much to eat though, so we also cooked hamburgers and hotdogs. It's a good thing we weren't planning on living off the land, because we would have starved. 

After eating his hotdogs, Kevin was happy again and he recovered nicely. The dogs enjoyed eating the fish guts, so everyone was happy. 

Honestly, I don't like killing fish very much either, but I do enjoy catching and eating them. Sometimes I wimp out and make Grig kill them instead, but that's not fair to him either. 

If I ever want a farm, I have to "woman-up."

After lunch, we packed pretty much everything, and then we went swimming again. 

Campfire food is the best!

Things were going great. Kevin was finally playing in the water by himself, and the dogs were sleeping on the beach, when suddenly a sheriff came walking down the trail. He scared both me and Arkhon, and Arkhon barked at him pretty well. He was just making sure we were all behaving. He was a nice guy. He asked if we were camping, and we told him we were, but that we were leaving pretty soon. 

Then, he pointed at Grig's  head out in the middle of the lake and asked if he was drowning. I told him that was my husband and he was just swimming. 

He said bye and left. 

We finished swimming and went home to shower quickly before my meeting. 

Thus ended our first family camping trip. 

I think it was a great success, and everyone had a great time.

Here's an American Avocet that we saw.

Baby Animal Days

Last weekend, we attended Baby Animal Days at the American Heritage Museum.

Kevin had a fantastic time, though some of the large animals scared him a tiny bit.

It's fun to see how much he's grown since last year. He's still too young to ride on the pony rides, but next year he'll be old enough.

Here are some pictures we took, as well as a new video.

Here's a baby bison.

Family picture before the candy cannon.

Waiting in line for the baby bears took forever, but Kevin was a good sport!

The baby bears were pretty cute. We enjoyed watching them once we made it through the line.

This little exhausted cub was especially cute.

Kevin loved the rabbit. He keeps kissing its forehead.

Sometimes he had to snuggle into Grig's coat to keep warm.

Kevin sure loved to play in the petting zoo.

Despite his face, the train was probably his favorite part.

Kevin loved all of the baby ducks and other animals.

The foal was super cute!

It was pretty tempting to get Kevin a chick. Once he held one, he never wanted to let go. Here he is giving it a kiss.

This final horse is worth a few more words. He had a funny little mustache and we fed him some grass. Right after he finished eating it, he let out a really loud neigh which sprayed grass all over my face. It was pretty funny, but unfortunately we were out of room on the memory stick so we didn't catch that moment on video. He was a nice horse though; huge and gentle.

We had an excellent time. It was a bit cold, but Kevin had his superman jacket and cape, so he was okay.

Here's the video I made for it:

Click on here to see the video!

Mormon Monday: General Conference April 2015

Well, another spring has passed, and with it, another General Conference. In previous posts (Click here or here) I've explained what General Conference is if you're not familiar with it, but with this post, and wanted to talk about my favorite talk.

I always love to hear Elder Jeffery R. Holland speak. I think it is the passion with which he gives his talks that really helps me to feel the spirit. Here's the talk if you want to hear the whole of it:

He begins by talking about two brothers who are climbing a cliff without safety gear and encounter an obstacle that they can't get past, and a point where they can't return.

The older brother hoists the younger brother to safety, but then he faces his own death as he sees no way out for himself. He sends his younger brother off while he gives one last desperate attempt to save himself.

As he jumps, he lands and feels nothing under his clenching fingers but "loose sand on flat stone." He feels himself slipping to his death. Then, his younger brother who never left, grips his arms and pulls him to safety.

He moves from this story to talking about how yesterday was Easter Sunday, and it was the most sacred day of the year because it is where brotherly hands (Christ's) reached to save us all.

Elder Holland then proclaims that we can't fully comprehend Christ's sacrifice for us, unless we understand that there was a need for His sacrifice because Adam and Eve lived and fell. If there was no fall of mankind, we wouldn't need a Savior to lift us back up from the brink.

However, because Adam and Eve did live, we do need a Savior, and he CAN save us.

At one point, he talks about the purpose of life. He asks, "Are we all just hanging in a cold canyon somewhere, in an indifferent universe?...Each of us seeking for something to help, something to grip? With nothing, but the feeling of sand sliding under our fingers...with nothing to hold on to, and much less anything to hold onto us? Is our only purpose in life an empty existential exercise simply to leap as high as we can, hang on for our prescribed three score years and ten, and then fail and fall, and keep falling forever?"

"The answer to those questions is an unequivocal and eternal NO."

Elder Holland speaks with such passion that regardless of whether or not you believe what he's saying, you can tell that HE believes what he is saying. I really appreciate that about him. There is no pretense, he is simply saying what he believes with all of his heart. Elder Holland knows that Christ is our Savior and he isn't afraid to share it.

I also know that Adam and Eve lived. As much as it contradicts common scientific evidence, it doesn't matter to me because I have felt the truth of it from the source of all truth. "The resurrection must come by reason of the fall." As I know that Adam and Eve lived and their is a need for salvation, I also know that Christ lived and he was resurrected! Christ lives now.

He is a huge part of my life, and daily I strive to know Him more and more. I have a lot of work to do (as conference reminds me), and I know that Christ wants me to improve.

I know that wherever we are in life, whatever we've done, Christ is standing with open arms to receive us. He loves us more than we can comprehend. I have felt a tiny bit of the love that He feels for us, and it was almost more than my mortal frame could bear. If you've ever felt so full of love that you nearly felt as though you were going to burst, I think you have some small inkling of the love that our Savior and Heavenly Father feel for us. I have felt that way, and often toward people that I barely knew.

I often felt that way on my mission, and I knew it was the a gift from the Lord to me. He let me have a glimpse of how he feels for His children, and I am so grateful for that.

I know Christ lives. He loves me and He loves each one of you.

I'd like to extend the invitation to listen to the rest of general conference. It's all available on youtube, and on the church website lds.org. I know that as you listen with real intent and with prayer to find answers, they will be given to you.

They were given to me.

Goals for 2015

This was meant to be yesterday's post, but I didn't get my goals chosen until this morning. So, first, I need to follow up on how I did last year.

My last year goals I was taking month by month. Here is what I had in January:

This month, I am working on reading/studying scriptures for 1/2 hour, exercising 1/2 an hour 5 times a week, and writing five pages a day.

For the most part, I did pretty well. Exercise especially reached a good point after we got the puppy. I was walking at least an hour a day until the cold hit. November I accomplish my NaNoWriMo goal, which was awesome, and I am close to finishing my first novel. (Technically, it is the second one I've finished, but the first one is the re-write process. Maybe while I'm editing this one, I'll finish writing the second draft of that one.)

This year, I have some yearly goals I'd like to accomplish, besides setting monthly goals. Some of those goals will hopefully be accomplished within the next couple of months. Here are the goals I want to share with you for 2015:

• Schedule every day
• Set monthly goals
• Buy a home
• Fence in Backyard
• Help Grig get his Welding Certificate
• Exercise 5x a week
• Read scriptures daily
• Memorize The Living Christ and The Family: A Proclamation to the World
• Finish and publish one novel
• January: Finish 1st draft
• February: Edit
• March-April: Re-write
• May: Edit
• June: submit to publisher

I'm going to try to make goals on the first of every month. I find that monthly goals do better than yearly goals for me. If I reset goals every month, then I tend to at least do well for a few weeks each month.

Hopefully we'll have a bought a home by the middle of next month. I have faith that it's going to work out. With the Lord's help, the impossible becomes possible.