A Saturday together

Last weekend we had plans to attend Jordan's Senior class dinner and auction night. Since we had to come to town I convinced Carl to make a day of it. We started the day out by running to the flower wholesale house, I needed to get some flowers for Relief Society's Birthday dinner. Then we went to explore Cabelas, since Tory and I had never been there and well Carl just loves to go there. Tory had a great time exploring and seeing all the animals. I think her favorite was the fish and the moose. We ended our day out with feeding the ducks and geese over at the dike road. I remember doing this when I was little with my dad. It was so much fun to take Tory, the geese come right up to you. Tory was a little afraid at first, and after a bit she realized that they wouldn't get her and she got more excited about it all. I feel like when we moved my heart stayed in CDA, it just feels like home to me. So it always feels so good to be back there.

Canada here we come!

Tory and I had the wonderful opportunity to go on a girls weekend to Canada at the beginning of the month. We went with a group of women from church. We stayed at Fairmont Hot Springs. It was so nice to go swimming when here was still so much snow on the ground and not freeze. We left on a Thursday afternoon and came back Friday. Tory was such a good traveler, I was very impressed with her good behavior. While we were there we swam, ate great Canadian chocolate, swam some more, watched a chick flick (which I hadn't done in a really long time, what a treat), ate some food and swam some more. The hot springs where very relaxing and so much fun for Tory, she's quite the water baby. It was so lovely to get away for a girls trip, we are for grateful that we got to go.

These are all the lovely ladies that we got to go with....left to right...Kamas, Tory and I, Penny,Carol, Valerie, and Lea... Darlene was taking our picture in this one. Here is Kamas, Tory, Penny, Darlene, Carol, Valeris and Lea With it being so cold out and the water so warm there was alot of steam as you can see. These are the mountains that surrounded the Hot Springs, they were so beautiful and huge.

What a difference a year makes

Ah, love is in the air. For Valentine's Day we did the same thing as we did last year. Dockside does this amazing Chocolate Dessert Buffet every year at this time and I love it. So last year we went and had a great dinner and dessert but, silly me I wasn't thinking about the fact that I was breast feeding Tory and chocolate didn't agree with her so well so we settled on Creme Burlee which is still my favorite dessert but when it comes to the Chocolate Buffet it doesn't compare. We did have a tasty appetizer of steamed clams though that were delish. So this year now that Tory is a big girl and I can have chocolate, I begged Carl to go there again. Which being the good husband that he is, he thought that it would be a good idea also. I was so excited I could hardly handle it, I know I'm a retard but hey it's a whole buffet of CHOCOLATE. We had a great dinner, Carl had surf and turf, Tory had pancakes and fruit and I had the steamed clams and CHOCOLATE. It was so yummy. When we came home I remembered that we had a picture from last year and I couldn't believe the difference in Tory, she has grown up so fast. It's so crazy how fast time goes by. She is such a big girl now.

It Fits!

She's so stinking cute!

This is an outfit that Tory received as a gift when she was still cooking in my belly. It is hand made by my sister-in-laws amazing mom, Sherry Cornett. Tory got to wear this to church a couple of Sundays ago. I just love it and Tory was so excited to wear the hat, she kept taking it off and on, so that every time she got it on she could hear "oh, you're so pretty!" Sherry is such a talented person I'm very great for all of the lovely things that she has made us. Our Christmas dresses were her creations too.

Turkeys, Turkeys everywhere

Tory and I went on a little drive one day when the ice was really thick on every thing, it was so beautiful. We drove up on the south hill where there is an amazing white house with huge pillars, its just gorgeous. Chance started to go crazy in the back of the car so I started to look around and I couldn't see any other dogs around but I did see a heard of turkeys. It's so funny right in the middle of town a heard of turkeys. They were in a big tree and walking all around this house. Tory thought that it was great to see the giant birds and Chance was a little excited too. I love unexpected surprises like this.

A girl with STYLE

This picture pretty much says it all... wouldn't you say? One day Tory and I were being bums but she decided that just wearing your pajamas wasn't enough. She kept bringing me different items to put on. First the tutu from Grandpa David, then one boot followed by the other, Mikey Mouse ears which unfortunately didn't make it to nap time, she also had a hair tie on her wrist. Then came nap time and we had to have two blankets. By the time she was asleep I got a good look at her and laughed... she is such a little ham.

Life's Little Lessons

The day before Carl's Birthday we got to go to the spa in Coeur d' Alene for a little pampering. My Mom was kind enough to take Tory so we could go as a couple. It was a wonderful experience that was very relaxing. The Spa at the Resort is amazing and luxurious. I highly recommend it. Anyway the reason for this picture is .... we were leaving my Mom's after picking Tory up, driving down the road when Mom called to tell us that we had forgotten something so I turned around and headed back to her house. I saw something in the road on the way back and a small voice told me to make sure that I don't run it over, so I made sure I didn't and as we passed it I looked in the rear view mirror to see is what ever it was had moved, but it hadn't and so we carried on. We grabbed what it was that we forgot and off we were again. This time when we came upon this something in the road there was a dog sniffing it, I thought that's weird why would a dog be sniffing a big rock(which is what I though it was at the time) so as we got closer I looked harder at it and realized it wasn't a rock at all. I then backed the car up and got out to find that it was this beautiful owl. Right then I was so thankful that I had listened and made sure that I didn't hit it. I would have be horrified if once again I had ran another animal over, we all know that I don't have a tract record when it comes to this. But this once, there was an angel watching over this sweet bird and I listened to the prompting. We ended up taking him to the Clinic that I use to work at where he stayed over night and the next day the bird lady came to pick him up. She will rehabilitate him and hopefully release him back into the wild. I know that this is such a small weird thing to write about but to me this is huge. It seems that Heavenly Father teaches me and gives me opportunities to grow though animals a lot of the time. If I wouldn't have listened to that small voice things would have been a lot different for this little guy and for me to. This little lesson has taught me so much and has made me think about a lot of things. Life is to short to not enjoy the simple things, we need to take time to realize all of the amazing blessing that we are given and not get caught up in the rubbish and to be still and listen. I am so grateful for this little bird and I am a different person because of him.

Beautiful Pictures

On Tory's birthday we got to go have 1 year pictures taken along with some of her and I. By chance I came across this amazing photographer(Amy Waddington) when I was pregnant. She did my belly pictures, Tory's new born pictures and now these. Amy is so cute and bubbly. She has a sense of warmth about her, when you are around her she make you feel like family not to mention she ogles Tory and gets her to smile. I think that she does an amazing job. We can't wait until the next pictures are done.

A gift from Heaven

Yesterday at 6:18pm I got the amazing opportunity to experience a miracle, Chrysta gave birth to her and Bryan's beautiful baby boy, Braeden. It's was so amazing to finally meet him. He is perfect in every way. In the beginning he didn't seem to excited to come out, Chrysta was admitted to the hospital Wednesday night and after a long wait he came out with out any complications. Chrysta is doing well, tired but good. It was the sweetest thing to see both her and Bryan all choked up when baby Braeden entered the world. Alright so there wasn't a dry eye all the way around. They are going to be such amazing parents, they have so much love for each other and now for their baby boy. I'm so excited for them and all the wonderful memories that are ahead of them and their new little family. I'm going back today to visit I'll be sure to get more pictures as I sure he is changing already.

Polar Bear Plunge 2009

Once again the tradition of the Polar Bear Plunge continues. This year Jordan, Ian and I got Hunter, Jen and Kaid to do it with us. It was exciting and refreshing just like I remember. This year it didn't hurt as bad as it has in the past, usually your toes and feet hurt so bad that you just want to cry. This year though it wasn't like that at all. Maybe I was just so excited to part take in the excitement. Carl and Tory along with my Mom watched us all on the beach all bundled up nice and warm. Mom was the official picture taker and towel holder. Carl just kept reminding us that we were crazy, secretly deep down inside he was wishing that he would have brought his shorts so that he could do it with us :) Anyway it was great and I'm so glad that Ian, Jen, Hunter, Jordan, Kaid - who said that next year she was going to be the official towel holder, I think it was a bit to cold for her. She's a trooper, how many 12 year old would be willing to do this with her crazy siblings, not many. I'm so glad we got to do this together. I'm looking forward to next year.

This man is my hero, he is 80 years old and still excited about the PLUNGE!

A New Year Challenge

I'm really torn about New Year's resolutions, I usually don't keep them, even though I have good intentions and then I feel guilty about not completing them. So in lieu of that I have come up with a plan for this year or goals I guess would be better to say. These are not my ideas so I can't take credit for them. I am however surrounded by great people that inspire me. I have a great friend who always seems to be doing one crazy project or another who this year is going to take a picture or 5:) a day the whole year, so at the end of the year she has a picture book of the year. Now that kind of stresses me out but, I liked the idea and thought that I could commit to one picture every week and try to do it on Sundays. I'm not quite sure why Sundays but it works for me. The picture of Tory in the bath would be my first picture of the Sunday pictures. Next, I read somewhere that instead of one year resolutions, you could do monthly resolutions and I thought YES that would work great for me. So far I haven't gotten to far with these but, for January I hope to get better at updating this Blog/journal and read the lessons for Sunday school . Hopefully in doing that it will motivate me to go to class. We have a wonderful teacher and her lessons are great but with Tory not quite old enough for Nursery and sometimes to rowdy and distracting we don't usually go. I want to though and so we are going to do it. Once I have the rest of the months figured out I'll post them maybe that will make me more accountable too.

Our First Christmas at HOME

This year for Christmas Carl and I decided that we would stay home. I was a little hesitant I have to admit, we have never done this. It was such a perfect relaxing day though. We got up in the morning, opened gifts, had monkey bread(a tradition in my family) and then took a nap. Later we that day we went over to ride the snowmobile at Owen and Shasta's. It was Tory's first time on one and she did great. Thanks to Owen and Shast, Carl and I were able to go for a ride by ourselves, it was so fun. It brought back memories of our dating months where we would always go out on the 4wheeler together. Owen and Shasta also gave us this great white hot cocoa. Carl and I are still talking about how great it was. We finished up the night with lovely ham dinner and the Christmas story from the Bible. It was such a wonderful Christmas full of family time, being lazy in our jammies. Just what Carl has always dreamed of, me too I just never knew it.

Christmas treats and lights

It has become a tradition for me to make peanut cluster at Christmas time. This year one evening it was just Tory and I at home we didn't really have much to do other than the usual loads of laundry, which I try to find every excuse in the book not to do. So making some treats and going to look at Christmas lights sounded like a good idea. After we got all the peanut clusters wrapped up we loaded into the car and went out on our little adventure.
Here are some of the beautiful lights that we saw....This house had all its light hooked up to a music box so that the lights would blink to the beat of the music.

Only in North Idaho would you see a blow up Santa riding a twinkle light decorated ATV. It made me smile though.

And last but certainly not least is our light extravaganza. This is Carl's pride and joy, it probably took him a total of 2 days , 2 melted extension cords, hundreds of twinkle lights, 4 reindeer, one prelit tree, 8 prelit twig branched and a new breaker( thanks to Carl's cousin Enoch) to put up all our lights. Thankfully he was able to get everything done before we got any snow. It sure looks amazing. He did a wonderful job, Tory and I are greatful to be able to have a beautiful festive house for Christmas.