Do you want to hear my talk?

Madison had the opportunity today to give her very first talk in primary. She was so excited!

 She has been practicing her talk all weekend. I even over heard her talking to Brooklyn the other night after we put the girls in bed.

This is what I heard.

M- "Do you want to hear my talk?"

B- "YEAH!" (very enthusiastically)

M- "Heavenly Father has a plan for me. Now can you say that Brooklyn?"

B- "YEAH!"

 I love the friendship these two have.

So the time finally came for her to give her talk. Mommy, Daddy and Nana all got to come hear her talk

(Pop pop missed out because he thought it wasn't until later)

One of Maddie's favorite friends was also able to come hear her as well... she is an older lady in the ward who Maddie instantly became friends with. She kept telling people that Joi was coming to hear her speak, even though before this morning Joi had no idea she was talking- but she was happy to oblige.

This was her talk.

Heavenly Father has a plan for me

He wants me to be happy

In the scriptures he gives us commandments to help us to be happy

I'm glad we have the scriptures

to teach us Heavenly Father's plan

You did such a good job Maddie. You stood so tall and talked loud enough for everyone to hear. We are so proud of you.

Touring the City- Finally...

Saturday we finally decided to go out and do the normal tourist thing. One thing we learned, it is a lot easier to do the normal tourist thing when you have more adults than you do children...

Although it was somewhat stressful, we had a wonderful time exploring.

The first place we stopped was the Snoqualmi historic train track- I don't know if that's what they call it, but that's what I called it.

 Then we decided to make the traditional Snoqualmi Falls stop, because it's tradition. It was really interesting though because even though the weather was perfect and the skies were blue, there was so much moisture coming up off the falls that it was literally raining at the lookout.

 You can tell it has been cold here though because everything surrounding the falls was covered in ice. It was absolutely beautiful though.

 After visiting the falls we made another traditional stop.

The Crab Pot.

Every single time we go to Seattle, we have to make a stop at this restaurant because it is so delicious and fun. When you order the steamed seafood they bring it out to you and dump it on the table and just let you have at it.

 They usually make you wear a bib to eat your crab, but I gladly volunteered to let Brooklyn use my bib. :)

P.S. We didn't just leave Maddie behind for this part of the day, she was asleep on the bench the whole time we ate...

 After lunch we headed down town to make yet another traditional stop... a Ferry ride. The girls thought this part was exceptionally fun.

 "Look mom, it's Madison Street!"

And this was pretty much the extent of our touring. Like I said, touring with two toddlers is easier done with more than two adults.

A trip to family cabin...

You know it's kind of sad when our children who live in Utah didn't get to play in the snow this year until we traveled to the state of Washington. In my defense, all of our actual snow clothes are packed in a box in the basement of my SIL's house and every time there was a good snow storm to go out in, our girls were always sick... so when my cousins asked us to go up to their cabin in the mountains we gladly jumped at the opportunity.

So Friday night we packed up the kids, again, and drove up to the beautiful snow covered mountains.

 Although it was dark by the time we got up to the cabin, the little ones still wanted to get all bundled up to go out and play. Lucky for Maddie, she had lots of cousins with old snow clothes so she was able to go out and play too.

 Three of my cousins and their families came up to the cabin as well as four of their friends families which meant there were 47 people up at the cabin that night- only 15 were adults which which works out to be there were a LOT of other children for the girls to play with.

 Maddie loved playing with all the older girls. And Brooklyn... spent the entire time inside playing with the teenage boys!

Thanks again to my wonderful cousins for letting us come along with you.

Enjoying our time together

On Wednesday we drove to Portland to spend the day with my sister Heidi and her husband Ovidiu. Since Ovidiu had to work, Heidi took us to a few classic Portland stops before we spent the rest of the day back at their apartment.

We went to a little restaurant called Salvador Molly's where they serve food from many different countries. We got a Cuban sandwich and an African Peanut rice bowl. Both were very different than anything we normally eat but were very delicious.

This restaurant was featured on the Travel channels Man vs. Food where he participated in their Great Balls of Fire challenge. If you can finish eating five jumbo fiery fritters and salsa in under 5 minutes than you get your picture on the wall seen behind Heidi and Maddie.

 We were also able to visit a place called Voodoo Doughnuts which was also featured on Man vs Food. They serve all sorts of fun doughnuts from cereal covered doughnuts to raspberry filled voodoo man doughnuts. Definitely a fun stop to make.

We've even been able to spend a little bit of time outside, enjoying the slightly warmer weather.

We haven't even done any of the normal tourist activities one would usually do here in Seattle but we sure are enjoying this time together as a family- and we do still plan on playing in the city as well.

Here we go Loopty Loo...

...Guess what we decided to do?

We packed up our bags

Loaded up our car

Threw in the children

And decided to drive

 We drove and drove

And before we knew it we were here...

 ...And finally after many hours we made it here.

Oh wait, you can't tell where we are?

Well then maybe I better just start from the beginning.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling kind of blue.

I needed to do something crazy.

Something that we as a family could do together.

Just the 4 of us.

I know it might seem silly, but since we moved back home with our family we have not spent more than a few hours at a time as just the 4 of us.

So at 11 am I decided we were going to go on a trip.

I called Karl to tell him where we were going.

It took him a minute to actually believe me

But 2 hours later we were on our way...

For a who-knows-how-long-we-will-be-gone stay

In the wonder city of

Seattle!

We are staying at my aunt Marcia's house while they are out of town for a few days so my need for some family alone time is definitely in the works.

We plan on taking it easy, and just playing everything by ear.

We want to do anything and everything we can

-without spending too much money-

And just enjoy being together.

Tomorrow our plan is to drive down to Portland to spend the day with my sister Heidi who we rarely get to see.

We are so excited!

One True Love

My SIL just did a blog post talking about how romantic and wonderful her first Valentine's day with the love of her life was and it got me thinking about how... almost amusing my first Valentine's day was with my dear, sweet, loving husband. :) So I thought I would share with all of you, our first Valentine's day story... an event that took place only 4 days after we "officially" started dating.

Karl and I just celebrated our "5 years ago we started seriously dating" anniversary on the 10th of this week. This date is significant to us only because the events that took place that week ended up leading us to where we are today. I know I have shared parts of this story with you before but for those of you who do not know the story, here it is...

From the day that Karl and I went on our first date to the day that we decided we were ready to seriously date, really wasn't that long. Because I was so young, this really scared me. I ended up having a little freak out- which lead me to write Karl a letter -which lead him to believe that I didn't want to go out with him anymore... Anway, to make a long story short (for the full version of this story click here) Karl decided to swear off dating completely for at least 1 month.

Two days later was my best friend Charlyn's wedding: February 10th. After the reception Karl and I decided we wanted to go out to dinner but due to the promise Karl had made to some of our friends, he said we could only go if it wasn't a date...

A few hours and a long discussion later, it was discovered that I really did not want to stop dating but rather I was scared because I knew our relationship was going somewhere I wasn't ready for it to go.

And then we became official.

Somewhere between the day I wrote Karl the letter and Charlyn's wedding, Karl had arranged to throw a Broken Heart party on Valentine's day with some of our friends since none of us were in a "relationship" for the holiday.

So this is how our first Valentine's Day as a couple went: or at least the parts that I can recall...

Karl met up with me on campus and we walked to his truck together to go back to my apartment. When we got to his truck I found a big chocolate key on my seat with a note that said, "For Valentine's day I wanted to give you the key to my heart."

The rest of the evening went as follows.

We picked up a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphey's and cut it down the center to look like a broken heart. We then spent the rest of the evening eating our pizza and watching a movie (probably some cheesey chick flick I'm sure).

Didn't I tell you it was romantic?
Don't worry though, he has long since made up for that super romantic group Valentine's date :)
He is even taking me to The Music Man tomorrow. Now that's what you call love.

Did you know?

Did you know...

...That the actual words to the song Book of Mormon Stories are "given this land, if they live, JUST LIKE ME!!!"- or at least if you ask Madison it is

Did you know...

...That the thought process of a 3 year old is quite different from our own and that by saying your vitamins are horse pills will lead to further questioning about why your pill doesn't have legs if it's an animal pill?- or at least that's how Madison see's it

Did you know...

...That it is much easier to climb onto a chair or couch if you go at it from the side? Up and over the arm- or at least if you are Brooklyn it is

Did you know...

...That the best way to look at life is
Through the Eyes of a Child