Mr. Handyman

Girls like guys with skills.

I like this guy because he has major skills.

The skill most crucial to getting our car fixed for the lowest price possible was his "I must conquer every challenge" mindset. And I am pretty sure that 100% of the time he conquers anything he sets his mind to.  I am so proud of him!

So the side mirror got hit by another car, and torn off, and Brad bought the part online and fixed it all by himself.  It was awesome and saved so much money.  Good job honey!

My Husband My Hero

Brad and I went to Newport Beach with my family this past weekend and it was awesome!  We had so much fun hanging out with everyone, laughing at Eli and his adorable antics, and playing at the beach every day.  

Maybe a little too much excitement happened at the beach on our second day though - we were all pretty much done with the beach for the day so Brad and I went back in the waves to rinse the sand out of our swimsuits.  While we were doing that we got a little distracted when Brad was teaching me how to dive through the big waves.  So without noticing it we got pretty far out there as we were trying to find bigger waves to dive through.  Soon I couldn't touch the bottom any more, and big waves kept coming one right after the other.  Pretty quickly, I was feeling panicky because I couldn't get enough air.  Lets be honest even though it’s dramatic  - I felt like I was drowning.

This is where Brad’s heroics come in.  He was able to keep track of me in the waves and started coaching me to either jump/swim to try and go over the wave or to duck under it and hold our breath.  After a little while, I was literally just hanging on him and trying to use his height to get some air.  As we were drowning, several thoughts ran through my head.  First, I wished that I had enough breath in my body to yell for help from the lifeguards.  Second, I thought, “Oh my gosh, Brad and I are going to die here together right now.”  But Brad kept me above water and calm enough that I wasn’t choking/swallowing any sea water and he kept us from being pulled out even deeper.  So when I finally saw an opportunity in the waves to get to shore, we raced for it.  My muscles were burning so bad because of lack of oxygen, but we made it.

Two lifeguards met us with their little buoys in hand at the edge of the water.  They apparently had been on their way to get us.  I was so ridiculously dizzy at this point.  They told us to sit down for a while, and if my dizziness didn’t stop we were supposed to let them know so they could have a medical person check on me.  But after five minutes or so of lying on the beach I got my breath back.  The lifeguards also explained that we were in a riptide and we should have swum parallel to the beach to exit it instead of trying to fight forward.  I didn’t know that, and in the panic of the moment Brad forgot. 

I quickly started feeling guilty because I clearly had been contributing to Brad’s drowning instead of helping him like he was helping me. But also I was so glad that Brad was with me during this little adventure.  I am almost glad that this happened because is not everyday that the love of your life saves your life, and it made me love Brad even more.  He was so selfless during the entire episode, thinking of me the whole time and doing whatever he could to help me - it was so sweet!  I am so grateful for my tall, strong man and this experience reinforces my desire to have him with me at all times! He's my hero! :)

Sunday Blues

Do you know what the best remedy ever is for the Sunday blues? (Sunday Blues: the depression you feel when you know that the weekend is drawing to a close and you have to go back to work after a truly awesome weekend.)

The cure is Galaxy Quest.

This is seriously the most underrated movie, and also one of the funniest movies ever.  Brad and I quote it constantly. The characters are hilarious and so is the plot.  I highly recommend it because it is funny the first and 50th time watching.  Check out the link on Rotten Tomatoes where it scored 89%.

Some of the things that made our weekend so awesome include: a dinner birthday party for my aunt at Porcupine Grill (such good food), a farewell party for Lene (we LOVE you!), breakfast with Brad's friend Aaron, the Provo Farmer's Market (yay for fresh produce AND cute earrings), 7 Peaks (yay for the pass of all passes), our awesome and amusing Nursery class, and a fabulous Sunday dinner of Pioneer Woman's Pasta with Pesto Cream Sauce using our homegrown basil!

You can see why I have good reason to mourn the conclusion of such a weekend.

The only down side was that our tire blew out on the freeway on our way back from SLC.  But it was all good, we survived it without a scratch which is all that matters.  It was definitely an adventure though.  Standing six feet away from cars flying past you at 70 mph is slightly nerve wracking I must say.

Anyways, watch Galaxy Quest! "By Gripthor's hammer, you will be avenged!"

My Favorite Book

Check it out...

http://mormon.org/book-of-mormon?cid=bom-email

New Calling

So I don't think that I have mentioned on our blog how we got put in a family ward with some big boundary changes that happened a few months ago.  We were definitely sad to leave our BYU married student ward after only a three month stint, when we were just getting more settled in.

But we have been enjoying our new ward and love to watch all of the kids in it during sacrament meeting.  Because there are a lot.

But now we get to watch them in a much more up-close and personal way because we have been called to be nursery leaders!

Our first day was this Sunday, and we were a little nervous for the first fifteen mins or so when we had to experience the several distraught children crying (hard) for their parents.  It was so sad!  But we were eventually able to woo them with puzzle time and singing time and by the time we got to snack time, it was all downhill from there.  After that they just ran rampant with two tubs of toys and a slide that made them all quite happy.  None of them even fought over toys.

Pretty much all of the kids were really well behaved, and we had few problems.  We easily learned their names because you say kid's names a million times when you are trying to direct them to do something.  Such as telling them to not climb on the table, not eat things off the floor, not eat crayons, not push other children down the slide etc. :)

On the whole, I think it was pretty fun and not as hard as I thought it was going to be.  (There were four adults in there though, which won't always be the case.) They say that we might even get to go to relief society/priesthood and sunday school some weeks once they call another couple to trade off with us. 

I have already noticed an increase of interest in things like children's songs/music, the magazine "The Friend" and the kids section of the lds.org website.  Did you know that there lds.org has a place where your kids can "color" online while church music is playing?  See link below in case you have kids. Pretty nifty.  The church is true!  And we love snack time!

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=dab73d141154d110VgnVCM100000176f620a