Oklahoma Part 4: Leah's Blessing

Shawnee and James decided to have Leah blessed on New Year's Day so that I would be able to be there.  It was so nice.  I miss too many of these events, so I was so happy they waited til I could be there!

Here's a picture of Stirling.  He was just making funny faces for the camera, but I just loved this picture of him.  He's such a cutie.

And Leah.  She's so adorable.  I'm so glad I got to be there.  She's such a sweet baby! 

Here's most of the guys that were in her blessing circle.  I think we are only only missing David. 

And of course, the cute little family:

Karl and Kathy (James' parents) graciously held a little lucheon for everyone after church.  It was great to get together with everyone afterwards and celebrate.  Congrats Shawnee and James!  Leah is adorable!

I left to come back to Oklahoma the following Monday.  It was not an easy day.  My time in Oklahoma FLEW by.  It felt like I was only there for a few days.  I can't wait to go back home, whenever that will be.  Love you all!

Oklahoma Part 3: Christmas/New Years Party at Mom's

On New Year's Eve, everyone got together at my mom's house for our Christmas/New Year's Ever Party.  It was of course, a lot of fun.  There is never a dull moment in my family.  And we had a blast.  It was nice outside, so we played outside for a little while with all the kids.  Sorry, not that many pictures.  My camera stayed hidden most of the night.

My mom also moved her kitchen table and cleared a space for us to have some fun dancing.  All the kids LOVED it and had a blast.

Logan joined in on the fun dancing too...

Here's James!

Matthew:

Kylie:

Like I said, not that many pictures from this night.  But we did open presents and play games and just laugh together.  It was a great time!  Everyone enjoyed it!  I think we all stayed up til midnight to watch the ball drop, but I'm thinking that we may have actually missed it drop.  I had a great time with my family though!  Thank mom for a fun night!

Oklahoma Part 2: Christmas Party at Dad's

I know, it's sad that it is almost Valentine's Day and I am still catching up on my Christmas posts.  I'm almost done...hopefully.  While I was in Oklahoma, my siblings and their families all got together at my Dad and Nola's house.  We have delicious pizza and other junk food :)  and just had a great time like we always do when we get together.  Here are some pictures that I took while I was there.

Brayden.  I can't believe how old he is now and how big!  It seems like he was born just yesterday.



My Dad!  I love him so much.  He does so much for his kids and always makes sure we get to spend time together as a family.  He is giving someone the evil eye in the picture, but I can assure you, it wasn't meant for me :)

Matthew.  I love this kid.  He is just soo cute!  This was the first I got to see him in a long time.  It makes me sad that him and Kylie don't really know who I am.  It makes me want to definitely live closer.  I love my nephews and nieces!

Oh Kylie!  I just LOVE this picture of her.  She's so pretty!  She's really shy too.

Dad getting to be Grandpa for a little bit with Leah.

Nathan!  That's right, I got a picture of him smiling!  He never smiles; he also didn't know I was taking a picture :)

Emmi.  Always posing :) 

Matthew with his present from the grandparents

The kids all enjoyed opening their presents.  They all then went off to play while we played our annual White Elephant Bingo.  It was fun times.  And Kylie even warmed up to me after a little bit and snuggled with me.

I love spending time with my family.  We always have a blast when we get together.  Thanks Dad and Nola for everything!

Oklahoma: Part 1

My trip to Oklahoma started out waaay too earlier.  Logan had to be at the airport at like 5 in the morning.  I dropped him off then waited til about 630 to go to my friends who dropped my off at the airport then kept my car for the week.  Thanks Crystal!  Logan flew standby and we luckily both got into Oklahoma City within like 15 minutes of each other.  Both of us were on different flights, but it was nice that we both made it. 

My mom picked us up from the airport.  My first sight of my mom!



Our first stop was Braums', of course!  Yum!!  I was a little disappointed that they messed up my order but it was ok once I started eating :)  Then we got ice cream.  YUM!!  I miss that place like crazy!

Next we headed to Christine's house.  Shawnee and Leah were there waiting for us too.  It FINALLY got to meet Leah.  She's sooo cute and such a good, quiet baby!  I loved holding her.  She was a blast!

I had fun with Stirling and Emmi too.  They are such fun, cute kids.  Emmi LOVED having me take her pictures and loved posing for them.  She's so cute!

Stirling was fun.  He even let me play video games with him.  I can't believe how big he has gotten!  He's already 8!  That's just crazy.  I remember when he was born and that seems like it was yesterday.

Here's a few more pictures of Leah:

A few days after I arrived, Jared and Karri finally made it up from Dallas.  We met them at a park and had fun playing with Darcy.  The only problem was that I didn't have my camera with me.  But here are a few pictures of Darcy from some time during the week.  She's getting so big and more and more like a little girl.  She's so adorable and so sweet!

I spent the week pretty busy.  It seemed that we were always going somewhere and doing something, but it was great.  I got to see a couple movies that I really enjoyed (the new Sherlock Holmes movie and Mission Impossible).  I also went to all of my favorite restaurants in Oklahoma (Braums, El Valquero and Ted's).  And I got to spend lots of time with my family including all my nieces and nephews.  I already miss them all so very much.  I was definitely not ready to go when the time came. 

This trip was a little different then past trips back to Oklahoma. As my mom is now an empty nester and everyone else has their own place in Oklahoma.  So it was just me staying at my mom's, which was great!  I got to spend some great time with her and David just chillin and relaxing.  Hopefully I can go back soon.  Love you all!

Grandpa's Memorial

On Christmas evening, Logan and I headed up to Michigan.  I'm so grateful that Logan came with me so I didn't have to make the trip by myself.  And if you know Logan, he makes anything fun!  We had a nice ride up there.  We got to my Grandma's (Mom's mom) house pretty late, but she was still up!  We chatted with her for about an hour or so (it was like midnight!).  Then we went off to bed.  The next morning, Grandma woke us up by making us blueberry pancakes and bacon!  YUM!!!  After we ate breakfast, Logan and I took off and went to the church where Grandpa's (Dad's dad) memorial service was being held.

It was such a hard day for all of us.  We all loved him very much and are so thankful that we were able to have him in our lives for as long as we were able to.  He always made us laugh and was always so kind to us.  He is truly missed, but we know that we will see him again!  It was a good service.  Sad, but good.  I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to go.  It was also good to see some family relatives that I don't get to see very often.

Josh and I felt bad for Logan not really being able to have a Christmas, so we bought him a few small gifts.  Because our Christmas was a little crazy, he ended up opening them out of my trunk in Michigan.  I just love my little brother!  He lets me take lots of pictures of him :)  Here's a few of him opening presents.

That was probably the last time that I will ever be in my Grandpa's house and I have so many fond memories of that house.  My grandpa had built it from the ground up.  It will soon be on the market though.  I wanted to take a few pictures of it to remember it.

Then Logan let me take a little photo shoot of him...He's such a good sport :)

The Dill side of the family always is having some sort of fun; so they decided to go out to this small town's 'downtown' area.  They had this HUGE Santa on display, so we all took a few pictures.

These are my cousins {Candace (Willie's wife), Kelly, Mandy and Aunt LeeAnne}

Logan, Brayden, Me and Dad:

That night, Logan and I headed back to Cleveland.  Then we flew out EARLY the next morning to go to OKLAHOMA!

Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas Everyone!  I'm only about three weeks late.  Better late than never though.  Josh and I had a great Christmas.  It was a very odd Christmas, but a good one.  We spoiled each other and were spoiled by our families.  This was the first year that we were not with family for Christmas.  We got up early on Christmas Eve and opened presents.  It was nice and we got some great things!  The only sad part is that most of our stuff was put into boxes right after opening (we are living out of boxes pretty much right now), but it was still fun.  I can't wait to get everything in our next place.

Sadly these are the only two pictures I got to take before my camera died :(  And typically Josh, didn't want his picture taken. 

We had a great Christmas on Christmas Eve.  Later that night, Logan flew into Cleveland!  It was so good to see him and have him see a little bit of Cleveland...He was only here for about 24 hours though.  We just hung out and watched movies that night.

Christmas morning, our friends from church, the Egners, invited us over for a delicious breakfast!  It was wonderful!  We have had a blast getting to know them while we have been here.  After breakfast, we headed straight to church for a wonderful sacrament meeting.  We had all the missionaries over for dinner and games after church.  We had a blast!  Unfortunately though, Logan and I had to skip out early and headed for Michigan...that will be in another post. 

We had a great Christmas!  and hope that all of you did too!  Merry Christmas to all!

Grateful

Tonight I feel completely grateful, which is not something that I thought I would feel at the end of the day today.  My day started at 5:40am when my alarm went off.  I got to work at about 6:55am with the plan that I would be working a longer day, but would be going home around 6pm.  Well, things kept piling up and as I am leaving town, I have to get a lot of stuff done before I leave.  I ended up leaving work at about 7:45pm.  As I started to drive down the road, I thought it felt a little rough.  But then I thought about how I live in Cleveland and all the roads are rough.  I got on the highway and was talking to Josh on the phone.  I told him that I think I might have a flat tire.  He asked how I didn't know if I had one or not.  :)  I thought I was fine, but a little further down the road, I thought I better stop and check.  Sure enough, my back passenger tire was completely flat.  Oh great...here I am again with a flat tire and Josh out of town.  I called Josh back and he said he was going to try to call a few people to see if they could come change it.  With a lot of our friends being out of town for the holidays, I wasn't sure that he would be able to get ahold of anyone.  I told him that I would try to change it myself, but wasn't sure that I would be able to see well enough as there were no city lights where I had stopped. 

Luckily, I found a little flashlight in our glove compartment.  I cleaned out my trunk, got the spare tire out and the jack.  I struggled a little trying to lift the car up with the crappy jack I have.  I looked something like this...but it was dark and COLD and wet.

Just as I was starting to try to get the lug nuts off (and they were on TIGHT), a pickup truck pulled up behind me. A woman about my mother's age, got out and asked if I needed some help.  I told her that I had a flat tire and yes, I did need help.  She then motioned for her son and husband to come and help.  They changed my tire for me...I would have been stuck there for quite some time trying to do it on my own.  I felt truly blessed that they had stopped.  The mom told me that as they drove by, their son said "Hey, I think that was a girl.  We should stop."  He seemed a little embarrassed as he said "well, it's different if it's a girl."   I laughed and said I totally understand.  So they turned around and came back to help.  The mom said something to the effect that she got out first so I wasn't scared by a man approaching me on the side of a dark highway.  They seemed like such a nice family and I'm so grateful they stopped to help.  It's good to know that there are still those nice people out there.  Tonight wasn't the best of nights either; it was cold, the ground was wet and it was completely dark and really foggy, but they still stopped and helped anyway.  It reminds me how much our Heavenly Father looks after us at all times.  I know that I am truly blessed and I know that he sent this nice family out to help me in my time of need.  It was a great experience and a great reminder that there are good people out in the world still and that our Heavenly Father is continuously watching over us.  I feel so grateful for this family, for the way they approached me, for changing my tire and for their kindness.  I hope that next time Josh wants to stop and help someone, I won't complain and will be happy to help them in their time of need.  Tonight, I am truly grateful for this family that took 20 minutes out of their evening to help me.  I just hope that next time I get a flat tire, Josh will be in town :)  Good night everyone!

December 2011, Thus Far

I can't believe how fast this month has already flown by!  Time really must go faster as you get older; but with that, I am worried how fast time might fly ten years from now.  We have had a great month thus far.  I LOVE Christmas!  I really have to hold myself back from getting tons and tons of Christmas decor.  We did, however, get a new tree this year.  We had an old Charlie Brown tree that we had gotten for free and gave it away at a garage sale we had this last spring.  We weren't planning on buying a tree this year because we don't want to have to move it; but since we are going to be home, I talked Josh into getting one.  I absolutely LOVE the tree we got.  It's prelit and has both pine cones and berries mixed within the tree.  We got a great deal on it too, 50% off!  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! 

I wanted to do a few Christmas crafts this year too.  Because we got a new tree, I decided to do a tree skirt.  I absolutely love how it turned out.  Here is a picture of our beautiful tree with the unfinished tree skirt.  I was just wanting to see how it would look.

Josh surprised me with an early Christmas present.  It's this tree topper with the nativity in the center.  We saw this in Amish country earlier this year and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.  I LOVE it!

My mom wanted to see some pictures of the tree skirt.  Don't look too closely to any of the seams.  I still have MUCH to learn about sewing.  I'm really not that good.

Here is our finished Christmas tree!  I love it and I think the skirt looks great underneath and the star looks BEAUTIFUL on top.  Santa even came a little early to our house and dropped off a few presents for us.

And just some random pictures I took of the tree.

Early this month, we were able to go to a hockey game.  Cleveland has a minor league team called the Lake Erie Monsters.  Its been a long time since I have gone to a hockey game.  We had soo much fun though and I hope we will be able to go again soon.  I didn't bring my camera, so only a few pictures from my phone.

We can't believe how fast time has gone already this month, but we are hoping that it will continue to fly by, at least for a little while.  We are anxious to find out where we will be for residency and we don't find that out til April.  That's all for now.