Nauvoo Weekend

Ahhh… yet again another wonderful Nauvoo Memorial Day weekend! Last year we were invited to go to Nauvoo with a few members of our church and it was a great experience. We were lucky enough to be invited to join again this year and it was a blast!
Jason and I left after work on Friday and picked up 3 of the teenage boys from our ward. I was a little curious to see how 3 teenage boys would be in a car for 4 ½ hours but they were great. We listened to music the whole way down with all of us singing along! We stopped for dinner and met up with the Billings family at Subway. One thing that did make me laugh was how much those boys send text messages I thought that was a girl thing – boy was I wrong!


We got to Nauvoo at about 10:30 and the kids immediately wanted to play games. We got unloaded and I tried to go to bed at midnight to no avail. Around 3 am I finally fell asleep – only to wake up at 6 am to help with breakfast. Jason went golfing with some of the other guys in the group and I worked on my dad’s history and took naps. The weather was gorgeous!!!! We ran into a member of our Stake Presidency and visited with him for a little while. Then Jason and I had the opportunity to do a session at the Nauvoo Temple.

That temple means so much to me – I don’t know if it’s because my ancestors helped build the original and went through the temple there themselves or because the saints sacrificed so much to have the temple built and then had to turn around and leave it. For whatever reason, I really love that temple and get such a great feeling every time I see it. We finished the night by going to see a group perform Polynesian dances (wow!!!!!) and then more games (of course). Rob and Tiff arrived later that night and Jason was in heaven to have his buddy back!
On Sunday it was another beautiful day. Jason and I went to church and then we explored and enjoyed nature with Rob and Tiffany. We went on a walk around Nauvoo so I could get some pictures and enjoyed watching the sun set on the Mississippi River. Nauvoo is so quiet and peaceful that I felt so relaxed the entire weekend.
Monday we headed home and Rob and Jason went golfing again. Tiff and I drove home together and the boys went home together. Before we left we took the two youngest Billings kids – Cameron and Kristin out on a “date” to get ice cream. We had promised them earlier in the week that we would take them out while we were in Nauvoo. They are great kids!


It was a fantastic weekend although I was completely exhausted when we got home. We got very little sleep because of all the games and fun! We tried some new games that I will have to buy – KuhHandel & Wacky Sixes. Those were a lot of fun!

What a weekend

What a weekend we’ve just had!! It was definitely packed with a lot of fun – some adventures – and many hours spent with each other and friends!
We went house hunting after taking a month and half break. We saw 10 houses and found one that we really liked. We are now in the big debate of “Do we make an offer?” and even more so of “If we make an offer, how much do we offer???” I hate that debate! While house hunting we had some interesting things happen. Our realtor Rose is the sweetest person ever (and super patient with us) she brought her 5 year old daughter Lexie and her husband Greg, who is a member of our church, with her and we all had a great time together followed by a yummy pizza lunch. One of the houses we went into started out really great – I had great possibilities for it and loved a lot of the things they had done to it. When we went downstairs to see the basement the lights going down the stairs didn’t work – but that can’t stop me…I was in the lead and started down the stairs and into the basement. A few steps into the basement I suddenly realized that I was now in water – up to my ankles!!!! We have had a lot of rain recently and apparently that particular house doesn’t handle water well. We quickly left – me with a wet foot!
I thought that would be the extent of our “Fun” for the house hunting expedition until we saw another house that raised a few eyebrows. The owner is an older gentleman that we discovered is originally from Germany. He loves Porsche’s and actually had a few on his property that his son was restoring. So we enter the house and I go into the master bedroom. I quickly came out with a shocked look on my face. Jason looks at me and all I could say was “Look at the picture hanging on the wall above his bed.” Jason bursts out laughing and comes back to me with an incredulous look on his face. This gentleman had a nicely framed picture of Adolf Hitler hanging in a place of honor in his room. WHAT?!#(%^#) That is insane!!!! Did he miss the whole WWII thing? Needless to say we didn’t put that house on our list of possible….I was in too much shock – we all were.
Some other great things for this weekend included a CUB’s baseball games. A friend of Jason’s from work has season tickets and invited us to join her and her husband for the game. It was incredible weather and we loved it! There is such a great feeling of excitement as you are sitting there surrounded by 40,455 other cub fans! In addition we saw Ron Santos and Jason and I saw our first Grand Slam. Bases loaded and POW! He hit one out of the ball field!! It was great!

And last but totally not least was our new acquisition – bikes! A couple that we have become friends with is preparing a move out to the Seattle area and decided that they were going to bring as little as possible back with them and offered us their Trek Bikes. We jumped on it and got an amazing deal (and no Tiffany we did not rip them off – they will be blessed)! We got 2 bikes one for me and one for Jason, a thing that attaches to the hitch on the jeep to transport the bikes, helmets, a computer thing to calculate speed and distance traveled, an indoor trainer for the bikes, and repair stuff. So on Saturday night we went on our first bike ride in ages! It has been so long since I rode a bike and I absolutely loved it – although my butt really hurt afterwards. We’ve made a goal to try to go bike riding every night. Along our bike ride we saw my second favorite spring thing next to tulips – baby geese and ducklings. They recently hatched and they are all around the ponds and are just so darn cute! I love spring!!!!

Ahhh....springtime!

Spring has arrived in Illinois and I love it! It is so wonderful to enjoy the beautiful weather even though out here we really do get those April showers. We have been enjoying the weather and the fun things that Chicago has to offer us lately. This past weekend we went to the driving range on Friday before going over to Rob and Tiff’s house to watch a movie. Jason corrected something I had been doing wrong in my golf swing and it made a huge improvement! What a difference the smallest correction can make. I quickly told Tiffany and on Saturday we made the change. Which of course leads to Saturday – out on the golf course. I never imagined that I would one day be a golfer but I love it. Maybe it’s because I am outside and enjoying the beautiful weather and nature. Maybe it’s because it’s a sport that I can actually do with my arthritis. Or maybe it’s because it’s something that both Jason and I love to do together. Whatever the reason I’m loving it! We all had a good time…well almost all of us…Rob played with a different group of people and discovered he didn’t like “hoighty-toighty golf” – which is where you play serious…we like to have fun while we play.

Last week was also great because Jason and I went on a wonderful date! We went downtown to see the musical “Mary Poppins”. It was fantastic! They had the original Broadway Mary Poppins & Bert and they were amazing! The special effects were incredible and the music was glorious! Have I used enough adverbs???? My favorite part was when Bert actually danced on the walls and the ceilings of the stage! It was also sooo cute to see all the little girls dressed up for their first professional show…how cute is that. I told Jason that when we have kids we are totally taking them to shows. What a great experience for these kids to have and they seemed to absolutely love it! During one part of the show a group of mom’s and daughter’s sitting by us all opened up parasols when Mary Poppins did – so cute! Before the show we went to a wonderful seafood restaurant McCormicks and Schmicks – they had a special “tax relief day special” where entrée’s were only 10.40 (normally $30) so of course we had to try it out. In all we had a lovely evening together – even with me having to drive downtown with all the crazy cab drivers!

The final thing about this last week that I loved was the nursery kids. Jason and I both serve in the nursery of our church. We spend about 2 hours with kids between the ages of 18 months and 3 years old. It can get pretty crazy in there, especially since we had 14 kids there. Every Sunday at the end of church we are completely exhausted from running around with the kids but totally worth it. We love spending time with those precious children. Since we don’t have kids of our own we forget how innocent and Christ-like these little ones can be so when we get the opportunity to spend two hours with them we are reminded of it. It also makes the ache of not having children yet a little easier to bear because we get all the love we want from those little ones. They are boundless with their hugs and smiles. I love it!!!! Yesterday especially was fun because the kids were so happy and just so loving. I almost got a little teary-eyed as I watched Jason helping one little girl pray – he is going to be such a great dad one day. Anyways…we love it there!

The Adventures keep on coming...

So this month marks 3 years since we moved out here – well Jason anyways. Last night Jason bought me tickets to go see the Broadway stage version of Mary Poppins and afterwards we were talking and he mentioned the fact that before we lived in Chicago he had never seen a professional theater production (other than my Pioneer Theater shows). That got me thinking that since we’ve moved out here we have had a lot of “firsts”.

•First time living apart from one another since we were married (never doing that again!)
•First time Jason had lived outside of the state of Utah other than his mission
•We have added a country to our list of places we’ve been– Canada
•Jason added a ton of states to his list and I added a few more to my list of states we’ve been to.
•First time going to a Cubs game – or any Major League baseball game
•First time seeing a river dyed florescent green for St. Patricks day
•Jason’s first time at an art museum (I loved it – him not so much)
•First time going to Bulls Basketball game in a suite.
•First time seeing the Nauvoo temple completed (I had seen it while it was being built)

•First time to the top of the Arch in St. Louis
•First time smoking our own meat
•First time living in a city that was participating in the Superbowl (talk about crazy – it was awesome!!!)
•First time watching a movie being filmed (They were filming Batman Dark Knight outside Jason’s work for a few days)
•First time going to a Posh Charity Event.
•Diana’s first time golfing – and Jason embracing his love of golf.

I could go on and on but that is good enough for now. We have loved living out here and can’t wait to see what other new “firsts” we get to add while we are in Chicago. Luckily we have had some wonderful friend’s to share these experiences with – not to mention each other. We are so lucky to live in a place that offers so much!

Not the Captain...

William Ernest Henley wrote “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” This past week I’ve decided that I am indeed not the master of my fate but I will leave that into the Lord’s hands instead. As many of you know we are trying to adopt. Since January we have been talking to a young woman about possibly adopting her child. Well we found out this past week that she lost the baby. It was definitely sad for Jason and I to learn the news but we both found ourselves at peace with the situation. We know that the right child will join our family at the right time and we have to be patient. The thing that was especially special through all of this was the amazing outpouring of love we received from so many people. Everyone sent their love and sympathy when we shared what had happened. My parents were so sweet and sent a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to us and told us how much they loved us (that made me cry).

Overall it was a good learning experience and reinforced to both of us that we will one day have a child of our own to raise and love. The mother of the birth mother that we had been talking is a good friend of mine and shared the following quote with me by Woody Allen “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” I know that I do that  I have no problem with patience in people but struggle with finding patience in my situation. I get so excited about something that I plan it all out in my head and then surprise it doesn’t happen. He knows the big picture and I am learning to trust in that. Thanks everyone for helping us through this experiencing and standing by our side!!!

Visits and Fun!

Visit!
So we had a spring break visit from Jason’s older sister Michelle and her family! It was so much fun!!!!! She has 2 wonderful daughters that we love to death and a great husband. It was such a great time together. They arrived on Saturday March 13 and brought with them some of Jason’s favorite ice cream – Blue Bell - from his mission days. You can only buy this ice cream in the south so we were super excited to have them bring this treat. On Sunday they went to church with us and then on Monday they started touring around the city.
Jason and I took half-days and full days off to spend time with them. We walked A LOT!!! We went to the American Girl Place (holy cow – all of that for a doll????), Navy Pier, Millenium Park, walked all over the city – and I do mean ALL over the city. The weather was unbelievably beautiful with temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s. We walked along the lake and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.
On Tuesday we got another visitor for the night – Diana’s brother Marc stopped over from Delaware. He was driving from Delaware to his new job in St. George, Utah and decided to stay the night with us. Hotel Bowler welcomes all! Since we were going to be having a full house we decided to make it complete and invited Rob and Tiff over and had a little party! Jason made his scrumptious hamburgers and brats and then we threw on some chicken for the healthy eaters. We played Apples to Apples and laughed and laughed all night. When Rob and Tiff left Madison immediately asked if they were going to come back the next night. I guess she loves them as much as we do .
Then on Wednesday my brother Marc took myself and the 2 girls out to breakfast while Jason’s sister and her husband went to the temple. While at Cracker Barrel for breakfast we bought the girls Webkinz animals and made their day. As we were leaving the restaurant Madison (the 9 year old) asked if Mr. Marc was also her uncle. I told her not really but he can be like an adopted uncle. Michelle, Morgan (her 12 year old daughter), and myself hit the stores for some shopping when they returned from the temple. They live in rural Kansas so it was exciting to hit some big stores.
Thursday was pretty quiet Jason’s sister was working on a unit plan and I got to help her. I had forgotten how much I enjoy writing lessons and brainstorming ideas to teach. It was a lot of fun. Then I made chocolates with the girls. We had so much fun. But the highlight of the night came when Jason got home and we finished dinner. We decided to go get some gelato for desert but couldn’t find any place open so instead we went and played with puppies! We played with 5 different dogs. It was great – until we played with with the Boggle and it bit everyone but me. But we all loved playing with.
It was a blast having them come visit. It is always wonderful to see family when you live so far away. We especially loved the time we would spend with the girls each night. They would come into our room and the four of us would pile on the bed and shoot nerf guns, tickle, or just joke around.
The house felt so empty after they all left! Thanks for coming to visit!

Chicago Premiere Night Charity Event

So it time to play catch up on my blogging! I didn't realize how long it had been since I last blogged but WOW! talk about being lazy. Actually it is more like being very busy recently.

I'll start from mid February when Jason, Rob, Tiff and myself went to the Chicago Auto Show Premiere Night First Look For Charity event. This was our third year going and it was as wonderful as ever! It is the night before the Auto Show opens to the public and is a black tie affair. There is catering from the hottests restaurants in Chicago and a spectacular event. Tickets are very expensive but I have an in and get them for free. Although I didn’t dress up as fancily as I have in past years it was still a blast! This year Tiff and I were speedy and got slippers before they started handing them out. Our feet truly appreciated it 



We arrived there before the gala even began so the boys could view all the cars they wanted to – even with that said they still didn’t see everything. The highlights of the night were the Transformer Bumble Bee, the Jeeps, Lambourghni’s, Range Rovers (they have a refrigerator built into the console!!!), and the Jaguars (talk about comfy leather seats). I also loved the Mini Cooper Convertible. Tiff and I had a blast going from food place to food place and sampling all the goodies while the boys drooled over car after car. By the time the night was over our poor feet were sore and the boys were still going strong. We ended up being one of the last people to leave.

It was so much fun to go there and mingle with the elite in Chicago Society and see such cool cars! The end of the night was especially funny when we had to literally pull the boys off the Jeeps to go home. They told us that they wanted to go look at the Porsche's before we left. So we let them go and followed slowly behind. We lost sight of them and asked someone working there where we would find the Porsche's and they said that their weren't any there this year. Immediately Tiff and I both said "Jeeps!" We knew where to find our boys - and sure enough - there they were playing with the Jeeps again. Ahhhh...to be young!