Walking Stuff

So this weekend Jack and I headed back to the basin for some quality family time. We split up for the day so Jack could go visit his family and I could visit mine. Me and my mom and sisters spent all day making jewelry and laughing and talking... by the way did anyone realize that Halle is 11? I didn't.

I went and saw Kimberly and Cameron perform in Guys and Dolls. How adorable. They are by far the cutest most adorable actors in all of Duchesne. yay for them!

Todd and Dana gave me a tour of their house they are buying. It's adorable and I'm so jealous they get to have a home. But I'm super happy for them.

It was a quick trip. It made me miss my family and wish I lived closer. Luckily we get to go back in a couple days for Thanksgiving.

Here's an adorable picture of Jack and I. We went for a walk on the Provo River trail. It was such a gorgeous day- probably one of the last snowless days we'll have for a few months. We took it with Jacks phone so don't judge the quality.

So here's a couple Good News moments... Jack and I fully intend to buy a camera this weekend. YAY! I can finally take pictures of useless crap and post them on my blog again. Sweet! Just in time for the holidays. I also hung my Christmas wreath on the front door. It's adorable. I get to go home for Thanksgiving and eat my mom's food. Jack and I are going to see the Christmas Lights on Temple square in a few weeks. We are spending Christmas in Orem with just the two of us. See all the fun posts you get to look forward to in the coming weeks. Lucky readers!

Christmas Stuff

Just a quick FYI this blog is mainly for my mom. Everyone is welcome to read it but I basically just need my mom to see all my loot and give me the stamp of approval. Ignore this post if it becomes too boring.

It is physically impossible for me to be any more excited for Christmas than I already am. Jack and I have been slowly gathering all the things we need to make this Christmas perfect, new dinnerware for our formal Christmas dinner, Christmas decorations, the perfect wrapping paper, I think you get the drift.

So yesterday we spent the day shopping for cloth napkins and napkin rings, tree decorations, gift wrapping, and cups. Jack actually has immaculate taste when it comes to these kinds of things. Of course he is manly and would much rather have been looking at guitars or video games but he was a good sport and let me have the entire day to shop for girly things. He actually did pick out most of the goods we found (plates, tree decorations, napkin rings, wrapping paper).

I just barely finished wrapping Christmas presents. We have 3 already wrapped and ready to deliver. For those of you still wondering.. yep I am my mama's daughter. (she obsessed with Christmas as well)

Ya'll better get on the ball. There's only 46 shopping days left till Christmas.

Gym Stuff

Jack and I are the proud new owners of a 24 hour Gym Membership. So far we have walked a whole 25 minutes on their treadmills and swam 10 laps in their Olympic size pool. I can feel the pounds dripping off of me.

A few weeks ago we started a "Biggest Loser" contest with Jacks family. We weigh in every Thursday and everyone sends the numbers to me and I have a handy dandy blog that keeps track of everyone's weight loss. So far Jack and I are in second place with 21 pounds lost. I'm pretty proud actually. We've done pretty well with portion sizing and we've been running on the outside track at the Jr. High near our house. Unfortunately it's getting too cold to run outside so we resorted to the gym. Hopefully that will be the boost we need to kick it into 1st place. Wish us luck!

Halloween Stuff

Halloween is not a big holiday in our family. Jack usually sits around and watches basketball and I play on the computer and hand out candy. It's worked in the past. But this year our adorable friends the Abbotts (how cute is that?!?) threw a party- so we threw caution to the wind and partied it up like rock stars (very mellow rock stars mind you) Margo out did herself with the food and decorations and was the cutest bestest hostess ever. We had so much fun. It was nice to get together with a bunch of people we didn't know and just be able to laugh and have fun. Thanks Margo and Tim for a great night! We love you guys! We took some pictures when we got home. My camera is still suffering and won't stay on for long so we had to snap these pictures fast, but we did dress up and we have pictures to prove it. Jack was a "used car salesman" (I like to think of him working at a KIA (random plug) dealership) and I was his knocked up housewife- think the parents off Matilda, except the mom wasn't preggers. And neither am I... but I want to be after lugging around a pillow for the last 3 hours. Is that weird. Okay I'm off topic....

Joan Stuff

NBA season started tonight. Which means I've lost my husband until next June. Bummer. He promised me a Jamba Juice if I leave him alone tonight though- and who can pass that up. So I'm blogging.

I've really been missing Joan lately (my friend whose husband got into George Washing Law School *YAY* but then decided to move her across the entire country and leave me stranded all alone and friendless and sad). So I decided to do a little reminiscing about our friendship and good times.

This is Joan (and her hubby Tryon (aka Stephen) but ignore him for the post's sake- if you can, I know he is dashingly handsome.) We met through our husbands- they were companions on their mission. I remember our first double date together was a picnic up at Bridal Veil falls. It was casual and fun. We got along well enough. She seemed nice.

A couple weeks later they asked us if we wanted to go camping for the weekend with them. It was awful! Everything that could suck did (food, sleeping, driving, etc) Later Joan admitted to me she wasn't excited to go camping with us at all. She didn't think we had anything in common and we could only listen to mission talk for so long before we all ran out of things to say. Somehow we survived the trip and weirdly enough we actually hung out again. I honestly don't remember why.

The first time I knew Joan and I would be friends we were in my car driving back from Salt Lake. Jack and I had gone up there to hang out with the Tryons for the morning. We ran out of things to do so we all decided to go to Provo and make dinner together. Jack quickly volunteered the girls to ride in one car and the boys in another. I remember being SO mad at him. How could he force me to drive 30 minutes with a girl I hardly knew. I hate awkward silence and I had nothing of interest to say. Ironically enough we talked the whole way home. I don't even remember what we talked about, but it was like talking with an old friend. At one point she turned to me and said "you are so easy to talk to" not a very significant phrase I know but I knew from then on we would be close.

And we were. It was common knowledge between the 4 of us that we would hang out every weekend. We were not allowed to make other plans. (My family can attest to this... they often heard the phrase "I can't, we're hanging out with the Tryons) It didn't matter what we did or even if we had a plan, but we knew we would do it together. We saw movies together, went on road trips to Vegas and Wendover, went to Lagoon, had parties, sleepovers, played dungeons and dragons, had BBQs, played video games, sometimes we would just sit at home and talk.

I love Joan for so many reasons. One of the big reasons is because she always knew what to say without saying anything. I remember one time in particular I was out of town for the day and she was at my house when I got home. I had been having a really rough day and had cried the whole way home. When I walked through the door she stood up and gave me a hug. I don't think we ever really talked about what had happened that day. We didn't have to. She didn't want to know all the nitty gritty details. She just knew that I needed her. And she was there.

Joan had a way of making me feel like I was on top of the world. I had forgotten how important friends were before I met her. She made me feel like I was more than just a wife. I felt fun again. I felt like I was worth knowing again. She'll never know how much her friendship changed me. I truly feel like I am a better person for knowing her.

I love you Joan. I hope you know. Don't forget you still have to be friends with me for 3 more years. I have your washer.

Concert Stuff

Because of Jacks horribly amazing job (horrible because it drains the life out of Jack and amazing because it allows me to take advantage of all sorts of free stuff) we were able to go to a Goo Goo Dolls concert in Salt Lake last night.


It was SO incredibly amazing. I can't even begin to blog about it's awesomeness. It was held as the final shebang for the Nuskin Convention. So the Salt Palace was full of old people who didn't appreciate the music and young people (employees like us) who couldn't get enough of it. It was a small concert which gave us the opportunity to be right up close to the stage. We started in the very back but because all the old people kept leaving we ended up incredibly close. And that is how we got such amazing pictures....

Obama Stuff

For the past few weeks I've been reading and hearing a lot from the anti-LDS Obama Supporters. People who are offended that an actual member of the LDS church could be an Obama Supporter. I've heard it from family members, during testimony meeting, blogs etc. I felt like it was time I stood up and defended myself and my decision to vote for Obama during this election. I asked Jack to guest post on my blog for this sole purpose.

First of all, the Church has deliberately never endorsed a party and it never will. It is a blatant mistake to think that the church sides with the republicans based on only two issues that Presidents have little to no influence over.

Abortion. President Bush has been "pro-life" as it's called, but because the US constitution is about protecting people's freedoms, he hasn't reduced abortion rates at all. In fact, abortion rates are the highest they've ever been, since the Republicans in power are against sexual education for high school students, which is the number one deterrent of unplanned pregnancies.

As for Senator Obama's thoughts on abortion, here's what he said in the last presidential debate:"The last point I want to make on the issue of abortion. This is an issue that -- look, it divides us. And in some ways, it may be difficult to reconcile the two views. But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, we should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby.Those are all things that we put in the Democratic platform for the first time this year, and I think that's where we can find some common ground, because nobody's pro-abortion. I think it's always a tragic situation."

The other reason why many LDS members struggle with the idea of electing a Democratic president is the party's view on gay marriage. They voted for Bush 8 and 4 years ago under his promise to define marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman. He didn't. In fact, there are more gay marriages taking place in the US than ever before. Here's the problem. The real reason that we think gay marriage is wrong is because our loving, perfect, and all knowing Father in heaven told us so. If you've come up with another reason, it's not God's reason, it's yours, and it's probably crap. That's why the US Supreme court will never outlaw gay marriage.

The premise that many citizens have this faith and so they want their religious beliefs to become the law will never pass in a nation that has separation of church and state. It would be unconstitutional as well as in opposition to the 12th article of faith, in which we are subject to the law. In essence, we can fight against it, but I promise that gay marriage will become more and more prevalent. The responsibility lies with parents to teach their children the values that they believe in.

As Senator Obama said, "But there's one last ingredient that I just want to mention, and that's parents. We can't do it just in the schools. Parents are going to have to show more responsibility. They've got to turn off the TV set, put away the video games, and, finally, start instilling that thirst for knowledge that our children need."

I'm sure it's a surprise to many of you that Barack Obama, a Christian man, has opposed gay marriage. I think you would be hard pressed to convince someone from another country that the Republican party, who favors free markets and large corporations, and ignores the poor, needy and the sick, that they have anything to do with any Christian group.

The reason Jesus made an impact on the whole world during his time on earth is not only because of the atonement. It was because He said things that no one had ever said before. He said that we are our brothers keeper, that we should love our enemies. He said the new commandment was to LOVE ONE ANOTHER! How have we become pro-war and still think of ourselves as Christians? The Republican base has racists and hateful tendencies towards Muslims, yet Jesus Himself was from the middle east.

I'm not saying that the Democrats are innocent by any means. In fact, I think that political parties serve only to divide America. I am saying that to vote Republican based solely on the premise that your are LDS is an opinion formed without thinking. On a side note, I am very disappointed in the LDS people I know who actually endorsed Mitt Romney. This guy was a slime ball. He had the most dishonest campaign of anyone in either party during the primaries. He has no convictions that he'll stick to. For all the complaining that I heard from people about how some Americans wouldn't vote for Romney because he was a Mormon, there is equal hypocrisy in voting for someone merely because he is a Mormon.

I know lot's of LDS people who are dishonest, immoral jerks, and you probably do too. Romney is not excused from that list because of his religion, and I hope that none of you would make that hypocritical mistake.

I'm not telling you that you need to vote for Barack Obama. I'm telling you that God sent us to earth to make choices, and if you vote without thinking and choosing, you're wasting that chance. - Jack Ady October 2008

And there you have it. I am extremely grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who gave me the right to choose. I plan on using that right on November 4th. I hope you will too.