I just discovered that I never published this post from last December, but better late then never, right?
The last few months have been crazy busy for Ashley and I. At the beginning of the summer, Ashley was asked to do a photo directory for our ward, including taking all the pictures, and that has kept him quite busy. He was finished for the most part weeks ago, but getting the template done and figuring out the formatting for the printing of it has been quite time consuming. He has also been working hard at getting his photography business started. He has done quite a few sessions with friends and family to get is portfolio started and will soon be setting up a website and Facebook fan page. He has gotten some fantastic photos already. I'll post some of them here once he's gotten them ready for posting on his site and fan page. I have been kept quite busy working at BPA (Business Psychology Associates). At the beginning of the summer most of the staff in my department left, so things got quite insane for a while. Over the last few months I've trained a new manager for the department and a new customer support specialist to take the place of two that left. It was stressful and I almost didn't stick it out, but it was worth it to stay. Now I'm in a pretty good position in my department and the company. Things have settled down quite a bit with everyone trained for the most part, so I'm back to enjoying my job more often than not. Also, a few months ago I was called to be the ward choir director, just in time to do the Christmas Program. It excited me, of course, cause I love Christmas music and have always wanted to direct a great choir for Christmas, but it also scared and stressed me out. Our ward has the reputation that we have the good choir and the good music, so I felt I had big shoes to fill. The reputation is well deserved too. Our ward is quite talented, and the choir is pretty awesome especially for a ward choir, so I want to make sure I don't disappoint them.
The last few months have been crazy busy for Ashley and I. At the beginning of the summer, Ashley was asked to do a photo directory for our ward, including taking all the pictures, and that has kept him quite busy. He was finished for the most part weeks ago, but getting the template done and figuring out the formatting for the printing of it has been quite time consuming. He has also been working hard at getting his photography business started. He has done quite a few sessions with friends and family to get is portfolio started and will soon be setting up a website and Facebook fan page. He has gotten some fantastic photos already. I'll post some of them here once he's gotten them ready for posting on his site and fan page. I have been kept quite busy working at BPA (Business Psychology Associates). At the beginning of the summer most of the staff in my department left, so things got quite insane for a while. Over the last few months I've trained a new manager for the department and a new customer support specialist to take the place of two that left. It was stressful and I almost didn't stick it out, but it was worth it to stay. Now I'm in a pretty good position in my department and the company. Things have settled down quite a bit with everyone trained for the most part, so I'm back to enjoying my job more often than not. Also, a few months ago I was called to be the ward choir director, just in time to do the Christmas Program. It excited me, of course, cause I love Christmas music and have always wanted to direct a great choir for Christmas, but it also scared and stressed me out. Our ward has the reputation that we have the good choir and the good music, so I felt I had big shoes to fill. The reputation is well deserved too. Our ward is quite talented, and the choir is pretty awesome especially for a ward choir, so I want to make sure I don't disappoint them.
My 29th birthday was in October. Ashley and our friends, Christina and Michael Hawkins, threw me a party at our place. My favorite color is purple and Christina really went to town with purple balloons, purple streamers, and a purple cake. We ended up with five couples - Ashley and I, Christina and Michael, Dusty and Amber Earl, Tyler and Janica Harris, and Shawn and Carmela Healy We had so much fun! We grilled burgers and hot dogs out on our balcony, had tons of other munchies and candy, played games, and just enjoyed the evening.
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| Christina made a mini cake for me & cupcakes for everyone else! |
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| "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Kristina, Happy Birthday to you." |
The week of Thanksgiving this year was great! We got to go down to Salt Lake for the first time this year, and most likely only time since this year is only two weeks or so from being over. We rented a car and drove down the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and stayed through till Sunday afternoon. Wednesday was sleeping in, shopping, and dinner with some great friends we hadn't seen for a while, Jenelle and Tim Waite. I also spent some great one on one time with my sister Melanie that night after dinner. Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving Day. My mom made a fabulous late breakfast and we watched the parade, then we went to my mom's parents house for Thanksgiving dinner with extended family. It was so fun to see everyone and spend time together. After dinner at my grandparents house, we went to Jessie and Sol's house to play games. We played Taboo and I will admit, the boys beat the girls, but it was so fun!
Friday was craft day for the girls - my mom, my sisters, and me. We did some fun wood crafts from the Wood Connection and made wreaths with stuff from Hobby Lobby.
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| My mom, Jessie, and I each did a "Joy". This is a picture of my finished product on my parents piano. |
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| Melanie did this one - SO cute! |
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| Jessie looking cute as always and tying a bow on her wreath. |
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| Melanie and her wreath - getting the decorations to stay was harder than it looks. |
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| The chaos of the table while we were decorating. |
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| My finished wreath. |
It was so much fun to spend time with my mom and sisters. The crafts were awesome and pretty easy to do for how good they turned out. I didn't used to think I had the patience for crafty stuff like this, plus I'm such a perfectionist that I usually can't commit to any one design or color cause I'm afraid it won't be good enough, but this experience was so great I can't wait to do more crafts on my own and with the girls.
After craft day, the guys joined us for pizza and games. We played Mad Gabs all night, and, if I remember right, the girls won that time. It was a great Friday night! The next day my mom, Ashley, and I went to the Jordan River temple. It was so nice to go to the temple. We hadn't been able to go since they closed the Boise Temple for renovations. We do mean to go to the Twin Falls Temple as often as we can when the weather permits, but they don't have clothing rental so we need to get some of the items for ourselves before we can go since we've always been able to rent before. Anyway, it was a great blessing to have the opportunity to attend a session while we were there. After the session, we waited for my dad to get done with work and then went to dinner just the four of us. It was nice to spend the evening with them. Both Ashley and I miss them a lot, so we were grateful we were able to finally go down for a while. We miss my whole family, honestly more than we expected to. Not that we didn't expect to miss them a lot, but we spent so much time with them, especially the last couple years we were in Salt Lake, that sometimes it's hard to know we're missing out on all the stuff they are doing now. We're just so grateful for the times we get to have and are sometimes sad we took the times before a little for granted.
