Jeffrey R. Holland at Stake Conference

We had our stake conference this weekend and I loved every minute. We were privileged to be visited by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. The Saturday night session was so great. All the speakers were fantastic, but Elder Holland's talk completely spoke to me. He spoke about trials in life and how it does not mean anything about whether Heavenly Father loves you or not. Of course Heavenly Father loves ALL of his children. It was nice to be reminded of that fact. I have had some trials in my life lately and I have started to wonder if I am being punished in some way. Elder Holland said that we can not think that way. If it were true that Heavenly Father only gives trials to those he does not love or wants to punish, that means that all the wonderful people we read about in the scriptures would be being punished by Heavenly Father. That's not true. It was so good for me to hear that.
Also, Elder Holland referred to this life as "the second act." He said that the second act of a show is always the worst. No one wants to go to only the second act of the play. The first act and the final act are always the best.
He reminded us that when life gets hard, we should not abandon the church. He compared that mode of thinking to being in a ship in the middle of a storm. He said that to jump out of the ship in the storm would be silly and a very bad idea. It's true! When life gets hard, the last thing that we should do is abandon our beliefs and/or our church.
I had a very spiritually uplifting week and I am reminded of how blessed we are to have God's chosen servants to speak to us and give us such inspiring words to follow.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We started our Valentine's morning by opening our valentines to each other and eating pink pancakes.




Later that day, the Joy School kids came over and we had our Valentine's party. The kids had a great time exchanging valentines to each other and seeing all the special valentines from their friends.







David and I have given up on the idea of a Valentine Date Night. It's too hard to find a baby sitter.... Plus, it's fun to celebrate Valentine's Day as a family because it gives the chance to really show that you love your family. We took Linc to dinner in Hurricane and then headed to see the movie, Gnomeo and Juliet. Lincoln watched the entire movie. He could not take his eyes off the screen. However, when the time comes in the movie when you think Gnomeo and Juliet pass away, Lincoln started to cry and said he wanted to go home. He was so sad! It took some time, but we were able to show him that Gnomeo and Juliet are okay in the end.

We had a great day together. I sure love my family!

A Day in Zion

A few weeks ago, we decided to spend the day in beautiful Zion National Park.


Linc and I hiked most of the way to the middle pools. He walked the entire way! We were almost there when he decided he was ready to turn around and go find daddy.




Linc sure loves his dad.




We had a great day.
After the park, we stopped in Springdale and ate some yummy ice cream.
I love days like this!

Happy Birthday to ME!

My birthday celebration for 2011 definitely goes down as one of the best.

I started the day with a fun birthday gift from Lincoln. He gave me a fun Wii game called Just Dance 2. I love it and I have played it many times already.

Next, David told me that he would be home around 3:00 to take me on a surprise date. While waiting for my surprise date, my fun friends, Becky, Summer, Julie, and Angie took me to lunch. We had a great time chatting and laughing. We always have a blast when we get together. It was very thoughtful of them to arrange a lunch for me. Thanks girls!

I got home from lunch right on time for David to whisk me away to St. George for our date. The surprise was a couples massage, dinner and shopping. FUN! David didn't really care for the massage, but I really enjoyed it. We went to dinner at Pasta Factory and had a wonderful time visiting and eating yummy food with each other. It was a great surprise. I was shocked that David had planned everything. It was lovely to have something fun to do on my birthday without having to plan one minute of it.

The next day was Saturday. My mom and dad came down to help celebrate my birthday. I wanted to go tubing in Brian Head, so we made it happen. Mike, Kathi and their kids joined Mom, Dad, Linc and I. We also had my cousin, Brian and his wife Airety with us. We had such a great time. Lincoln loved every minute and frankly, so did I. :)


Dad was nice enough to push Linc down so he could go down at the same time as me. That way, I was able to help him off the hill. :)

Part of the fun of tubing is getting towed up the hill. Linc always giggled at this part.


Kathi is a fun girl.
Momma Mo, is sure looking like a true snow bunny. She mentioned several times how much she missed skiing in Brian Head. Maybe we will have to start that again.


Dad had a fun time too. He got going really fast down the hill.

Michael always has a classy face for the camera.

Every time we reached the bottom of the hill, Linc would enthusiastically say, "Let's go again!" I have to agree. LET'S GO AGAIN.

We had such a great time tubing. Of course, we missed family members who were unable to attend. We will definitely do this again.