Last week of September already

This past week has flown by so I'm going to give a quick update. I'll try and pick up where I left off last week.

Last Tuesday we had a Relief Society Activity. We had 3 different classes to go to. One was on making photo books and preserving your memories that one, one was on journaling, and one was on using the new website www.new.familysearch.org. They were all excellent; I learned a lot and I think so did the sisters who attended.

Wednesday Steve had class all day, I had work, then visits afterwords. I then went over to the church w/ my 2nd counselor and met w/ the Elder's Quorum President and his 1st counselor and went over Home and Visiting Teaching assignments for October. It went really well and I felt we were efficient too. I had gone over the VT side w/ my Coordinator the Saturday before so I felt more prepared and ready for the meeting. President Thorup commented to me that he felt I was well prepared for it, which of course helps to rely on the Spirit even moreso when making the changes.

Thursday I mainly did homework after school and Steve had his EMT class again.

Friday Steve went to help Carrie move her stuff out of her apartment and I had to take my midterm. Not our ideal Friday night, but you do what you have to do sometimes. Steve got home before I finished so he just played a game on the computer for the last 1 hour while I finished it. He then went and got some ice cream for us and we watched a little TV together then went to bed.

Saturday I slept in til 11; I was tired needless to say. We then went out and shopped for a dress for me for Carrie's wedding. We found a pretty cute one at Ross, hopefully it'll work. We looked at suits a little for Steve, but then after we got home he decided he could just wear one he already had. I then got ready for my sisters Rose and Pauline to come over so we could go to the Relief Society Conference downtown together. Steve went w/ Greg Morris from our branch and his friend Zach Hanney up the canyon to go fly fishing.

I drove downtown and parked in the parking lot they assigned us. Traffic was a little busy getting there but we made it just in time. The talks were really good. Of course I really enjoyed President Uchtdorf's the most; it had the most meaning to me at this time in my life. You can read it here if you haven't already, or watch it. http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/forget-me-not?lang=eng It was excellent!

Here are the 5 Forget Me Nots
1. Forget not to be patient with yourself.
2. Forget not the difference between a good sacrifice and a foolish sacrifice.
3. Forget not to be happy now.
4. Forget not the “why” of the gospel.
5. Forget not that the Lord loves you.

When he was bearing his testimony about the 5th one that God loves us the Conference Center went completely silent. You could FEEL the power of his message and testimony. It was incredible; the Spirit was so strong! You KNEW that he knew what he was saying was the truth! I love the power of a testimony. Nothing can restrain the Spirit from bearing truthfulness when a testimony is born. Love it!

Afterwards we walked over to Olive Garden and had dinner together. We then came back to my place where we chatted some more. I also made copies of 2 Wheat Bread recipes I've used recently and LOVED! It was really fun to hang out w/ them and share the experience of the RS Conference together. It would be great if next time our Mom, Barbara, Anna, Kristi, and Michelle could be there too. :)


Rose and Pauline w/ me at the Relief Society Conference. (I finally found my camera battery charger yeah!)


Sunday I had a lot of meetings from 9am - 6pm. Afterwards Steve and I got to relax and spend time together.

My left wrist has been bothering me and we figured its carpal tunnel. We went and got a wrist brace to wear at work which seems to be helping. I'm also wearing it at night. I also asked that they order my an ergonomic keyboard. Here is a pic of it.

My new ergonomic keyboard at work


This Tuesday night Steve met me at the trax station and we went to the temple. It was closed Saturday after Noon, so we slept too long to make it in time. The session was really good and it was definitely needed. It's crazy how quickly the month passes when you've got a million things to do during the week.

Looking back at the Jordan River Temple from the parking lot.
I love how it "shines."


We're excited for General Conference this weekend. We're planning to go up to the cabin to watch it. Can't wait!!! :)

Getting busy again....

I need to update really quick before I forget what's been going on the last couple weeks. Steve decided to head up to the cabin today to help Dave prep the deck to be painted. So after class he packed up his stuff and drove up. Steve doesn't have school on Tuesdays so it worked out perfectly. I did some grocery shopping tonight and plus I have work and a have a Relief Society Activity tomorrow so I couldn't go. I'm glad he could go up and help though.

Steve helping to prep the deck at the cabin, scraping old paint off


Last week Steve and I were both sick with the stomach flu. It wasn't very fun. It hit Steve the hardest last Sunday during sacrament meeting. He started feeling nauseous so I encouraged him to go to the restroom just in case. Well he ended up throwing up, so I took him home. I then went back for Sunday School and Relief Society plus meetings and more meetings, so I didn't get home until 5pm. Well by this time Steve was not doing very well. He said he had been either throwing up or having it come out the other end pretty much nonstop. It kept getting worse and worse and he of course couldn't keep anything down, not even water, without throwing it up. He was getting pretty dehydrated and started to get really bad stomach cramps, so we decided to take him into the instacare. Well, by the time we got in it was a little after 8pm and they said they couldn't start IV's after 8pm so we needed to go to the ER. We went home for a bit to see if the cramps would stop but they didn't, so we went to the ER at about 8:30pm. They then got an IV started for him and eventually gave him morphine to help w/ the pain. He then started doing much better. His heart rate was pretty high though so we had to stay til about 1:30 am as they were monitoring it. When we left Steve was doing 100 times better than when we got in. We were both REALLY tired by the time we got home and into bed.

Steve at the ER just enjoying life....now that he has morphine ;)



Steve getting some fluids after being so dehydrated all day


I stayed home Monday, mainly since I was exhausted and to take care of Steve. My stomach started hurting that night so I ended up staying home Tuesday also, just in case I got it. It was more of my stomach cramping and grumpling more than anything, but it was nice to be home taking it easy since I didn't feel too good either.

Wednesday I went to work and Steve had class all day. After work I went to visit new sisters from 6-8:30pm, then I had a meeting w/ President Thorup from 8:30-11:30pm. I know it was a LONG night, but I got a lot accomplished. We went over a lot of things about our branch RS.

Thursday after work I went to Carrie's bridal shower (Steve's older sister) while Steve went to his EMT class. It was a fun shower. She gets married in less than a month on October 15th in Melanie's backyard.

Friday at work I organized a potluck for my team. It was a fun and there was plenty of food. After work I wasn't feeling the best (no correlation w/ the potluck), so we decided to take it easy. Since we hadn't been to the new In-N-Out Burger right here by our place we decided to go. As we pulled up another couple and their 5 yr old daughter Riley who lives in our same complex pulled up. We ended up sitting w/ them as we ate and visited. It was nice to enjoy their company. We then went to Target to use the $10 giftcard we had. We decided we could each get something for $5. We ended up in the games section and found 2 $5 games! I got Mancala and Steve got a chess/checkers/backgammon set. Score! We only payed like 66 cents for the 2 of them! We then came home and played them, then watched a movie and went to bed.

That night the stomach flu finally got me! I went to the bathroom 3 times w/in a couple hours so I had Steve go pick me up some Imodium. That helped w/ it coming out, but I still had stomach cramps all day. Even though I wasn't feeling too well I was still able to meet w/ my VT Coordinator to go over some things, and Steve and I went to a funeral. A couple in our ward lost their baby. She was only 18 weeks along, but they decided to go a funeral service anyway. We decided to go and support them. Afterwards I worked on my homework assignments and lesson for RS the next day. We watched a little of the U vs BYU game; the U killed BYU 54 to 10!!!!

My lesson for RS went well I think. I decided to do a lesson using the new RS book "Daughters of my Kingdom." We passed them out and I used Sister Beck's talk called "Fulling the Purpose of Relief Society" from October 2008. Here's a link if you want to read it; it's great! The new books are beautiful to the eye and to the soul as you read them. Here is a quote from her talk, "To summarize, the purpose of Relief Society, as established by the Lord, is to organize, teach, and inspire His daughters to prepare them for the blessings of eternal life.'

https://lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/fulfilling-the-purpose-of-relief-society?lang=eng&query=fulfilling+our+responsibility,%28+name%3a%22Julie+B.+Beck%22+OR++name%3a%22David+L.+Beck%22%29

After church I made some rolls and we went over to LuDean's for our family get together. We had dinner, then we all helped make things for Carrie's wedding (since it will be in the backyard). I helped make the signs and got to use Diane's cricket machine; it was really fun! We got a lot done but there are still a lot more things that they need done before the wedding. I also made 2 loaves of wheat bread while we were there. I had the dough ready to go so I just baked it while we were there. Half of one loaf got eaten before we left (and all the rolls), then we left half for LuDean, we took half of one and gave Dave the other half. These 2 loaves turned out really well. They were really soft, moist and yummy. I think I'm getting better at it....hopefully anyway ;)

Ok one more thing. We went to my parent's house over Labor Day (2 weeks ago I know). We took Zach Hanney up w/ us (Steve's friend), since Rob Daniels got to go up once it was his turn. They went shopping, just about anything they could, while I had to work on homework unfortunately. We got to visit w/ Daron and his family though so that was a lot of fun. While over at Daron's Zach and Steve even got to rope the goat. It was pretty funny to watch let me tell you. The weekends always go too quickly.

The next day after work Steve picked me up and we headed to Rose's place to watch the girls so they could go to the temple. We had a good time watching them and no one fell and hit their head this time. Yeah hopefully doing better ;)

Well I hope all is well. Keep us posted. We love you all!!!! ;)

Back to School.....

I finished with my capstone class last Thursday, August 25th, and let me tell you….it feels GREAT to get that out of the way! We presented our project to the staff of Devry and also to some of our teacher Matt’s friends who are in the business field. There were only 4 (myself, 1 guy and 2 other girls) of us in the group and in our class, so we all had to give 100% in order for it to work and to get it done in time. Unfortunately the guy in our group had to leave right as we were starting to give our presentation. He got a call just before saying his wife was in labor and going to the hospital, 7 weeks early. He went first but was kind of frazzled by the circumstances so I had to regroup and almost start us over again. After presenting they drilled us w/ questions, but overall I felt it went really well. We ended up getting an A in the class. I’m really glad I’m done it that class. It was a lot of work! I now have 3 more electives. I’m taking an online class called Event Planning and Management. It’s something I’m interested it; it should be fun!

Steve started classes at the University of Utah on the 22nd. He’s now taking his major classes so they should be more enjoyable for him. We decided to pick up another class so now he’s at 18 credits, 9 of which are for an EMT evening class which last 8 hours total. He really likes the class so far and is thankful he did medical assisting before, which is giving him a head start on a lot of things. We also found a bus route which picks Steve up just outside our place, takes him straight up to the U and drops him off about the same spot. So this will save him time traveling up (faster then the train) and he doesn’t have to drive anywhere so hopefully it will help us save money on gas. Saving some can definitely help especially since tuition costs are SOOO expensive at the U, seriously, over $4000 for one semester in state tuition, sheesh! Thankfully my job is allowing us to save for tuition costs and is still paying 90% of my schooling. We are blessed! I have nothing to complain about. ;)

Last Friday the 26th, Steve picked me up from work and we went to the Salt Lake Temple and did initiatories. I got to do 6 names, but unfortunately the men’s side was REALLY understaffed and Steve wasn’t able to do any. We were glad to make it to the temple though to feel the Spirit and peace. Afterwards we went home, changed, and then went to Red Robin for dinner. We then came home swam and watched a movie. It was an excellent date night!

The next day, Saturday, we had a branch BBQ at the church pavilion. It was fun! We had a pretty good turn out. We had hot dogs and chili and had everyone bring side dishes and desserts. We then played water balloon volleyball and had a slip and slide. Steve got a lot of the men to do the slip and slide w/ him while I played volleyball. After that we then went on a hike up to Donut Falls and invited a couple from the branch to go w/ us. We had a good time. Jana and I walked a little faster then Jon and Steve so we got there before they did. It was a nice enjoyable hike; so pretty. We then made a quick dinner than had them back over to go swimming and use the hot tub. It was a lot of fun!

This Tuesday we went w/ Ashley and James Dunkelberger to Thanksgiving Point's Garden, since it was $2 Tuesdays. We drove w/ them down then met another couple there and walked around looking at the beautiful flowers, ponds, and landscaping. My camera battery was dead from Yellowstone, and I haven't found my charger, so took these pics from my camera phone (not bad).


A pond w/ lots of lilly pads


On the other side of the ponds were LOTS of hungry fish!


Pretty flowers


The falls at the end of the gardens


After we got to the gardens we noticed their front right tire was bulging. They decided to drive home on it anyway. We told him to drive slow because it could blow anytime, but he wanted to get home so he was going about 60 mph. Well we got to about Sandy then it blew. It was lucky that no one hit us from behind or anything and we were able to get over to the right lane edge. When the tire blew it rubbed on the fender bender and actually tore it up also which made it rip up all the way to the window. It also hit the washer fluid so it was leaking all over the road. We then helped him change the tire to the spare and we lipped our way home w/ Steve holding the "wing" down and making sure we didn't get anyone. Thankfully they called their insurance the next day and since the damage was caused by the tire and the car didn't technically touch the ground, they covered it 100% w/ only a $100 deductible. It was an adventure, and definitely not something I'd like to do again. It was kinda scary. I guess Ashley has been asking James to get the tires changed for sometime now but obviously hadn't gotten around to it. Moral of the story is change your tires when they tell you to.....they're not kidding when they say your tires are bad and need to be replaced.