Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Merry Christmas

(Again, I'm at work and will post about birthday soon)

Poor guy... I hope this is a joke?

Monday, December 15, 2008

Tithing Settlement

So, first let me say that I will post about my absolutely fun birthday in another post... I'm just at work and want to take pictures of the gifts I got from Josh to include in the post. But while I'm at work I was thinking about something that I thought I would share:

In the current economic situation I know it's tough for a lot of people to pay their tithing and especially to pay a generous fast offering. Well, at this time of year, we get to have tithing settlements with our bishop, which are always the same every year. You go in, tell the bishop yes (or no) and then go on your way. When we went in for ours, I was really touched because our bishop had felt the need to tell all of the members that if we pay a very generous fast offering we will be extremely blessed. He specifically said, "now we don't want anyone to pay so much that it will hurt you financially, but it should pinch a little."

So after tithing settlement, Josh and I talked about what we should increase our fast offering amount to. Well, this was just about a week ago, and we're already seeing blessings in our lives. Just to name two that stand out to me, first I got a bill from the dentist saying that we owed about $400 or something, so I called because I thought we had already paid what was expected. When I called the lady said, "Oh wait... you definitely don't owe anything, in fact you have actually over paid by $81." So she sent us out a check for the over payment!

Second, I just found out at work that we are getting an unexpected holiday bonus in our paycheck on Friday for $200!

I don't normally post personal things on my blog, but I felt like I should let you all know that blessings (no matter how big or small) definitely come when you pay your tithing and fast offerings. I think it's such a great thing to know that when we help others, we will be blessed in return. I feel so grateful for the opportunity to be able to give when we have the chance to do so.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Thanksgiving Weekend

Man oh man... I had such an amazing time this weekend in California. Josh and I flew down on Wednesday night and we were the last of the family to arrive. As the previous post mentioned, all of my family was there. Every brother, and their entire family. It was a blast!! At times it was a little crazy with 9 nieces and nephews running/crawling around, but I absolutely love those kids. Of course I'm a dork and didn't take any pictures while I was there (I'm so mad at myself), but hopefully someone else took some pictures.

The first full day we were there was Thanksgiving and we had the best dinner EVER! I always love my mom's cooking, because she's just so amazing. She's also the sweetest mom ever because I don't like turkey (ya, I know, I'm weird) so she always makes a ham for me too :) And I love ham!!! Then of course, there are all of the delicious side dishes that make the Thanksgiving meal, just so yummy! That day was spent hanging out with the family and watching football.

Then the next morning was BLACK FRIDAY!! I don't usually like to shop, but I really love a bargain, so Josh and I saw in the ads the day before a few TVs that were on sale and thought we would check them out. We went to Walmart around 7:30AM and it was crazy busy as expected. All of the TVs we wanted were technically "reserved" because they had given out tickets to customers and they would use the tickets to purchase the TVs, but they said that by 10AM if the TVs weren't claimed then they were up for grabs. But we had family pictures at 10, so we just figured we'd check afterwards and if there were any great, then if not, no big deal. So we came back after, and they were all gone, but Josh spotted the one we wanted on display so we asked the manager if they would sell it to us and they said YES! So we got the TV we wanted, not only on sale, but another 10% off because it was the display model!! We were stoked!! It's a Samsung, 50" plasma TV. I LOVE IT!! And it's HUGE!!! It definitely looks tiny compared to our 32".



On Saturday my mom got us girls tickets to see Celine Dion in concert in Anaheim!!!! We were soooo excited! It was so fun to go out with just the girls. It was my mom, me and my 4 sister in laws. Let me just tell you, I love Celine!! She has the most amazing voice and she's hot! She has like the perfect body and I'm envious, but she is just so talented. I liked her a lot before, but man, I want to listen to her songs all the time now! hahaha. So thank you mom for the tickets, we all had such a PERFECT TIME!!!!



So all, in all, this weekend was perfect. Josh and I couldn't ask for a better family. We are so lucky to have all of them in our lives and we were sad to have to leave. But now I get to decorate for Christmas! WOOHOO!!