Birthdays!!

Two of my good friends recently celebrated their birthdays, and the rule is: you're a princess the entire week of your birthday. Shauna & Rob came from Sun Valley to celebrate Shauna's birthday and Kristin & Michael from St. George came and stayed for the weekend. The next week, it was Heather's birthday, so Stephanie & I took her out to dinner. It was so fun to catch up w/ these good friends. Happy Birthday, girls!!
UPDATE: Stephanie's birthday was Nov. 5th, so we celebrated hers too! The food at Epic was so beautiful, we had to take pictures!

Brian & Jordan visit Utah

Last week we had a rare and lovely opportunity to see our brother Brian and his son Jordan. Brian had to work at the SLC airport to resolve a "million-dollar problem," and Jordan attended a youth conference with Liahona Academy at Aspen Grove all week. Shaunna & Keith and I got to go out to dinner with Brian Wednesday night, then I had him over and we hung out with Jeremy. Brian even taught us how to install a new light fixture. Yeah - I feel so empowered now!!!
Friday afternoon we met up with Brian & Jordan and played a mean game of miniature golf at the new Liberty Land Fun Center in Lehi. Jordan beat us all. Personally, I blame the cold weather for my poor score...hehehe. It was so cold and windy this weekend! Winter is upon us! Anyway, then we went to dinner at Citris Grill in Draper, where Jeremy met us. We all had a great dinner, enjoying a great variety of appetizers and entrees. Then we hung out and talked until our movie started - City of Ember. It was a kids' adventure movie and pretty entertaining. We all enjoyed it. Jordan turned 15 on Thursday, so it was fun to be together for his birthday celebration.
Saturday morning, Jordan and Brian came to my house and we fixed scrambled eggs and pancakes and hung out awhile before they left for their next adventure before heading to the airport to return home to Seattle.
I'm so mad at myself for not taking more pictures while we were together - especially Friday. But at least we got a few Saturday morning.
It was so great to be with family and catch up. I couldn't believe how much Jordan had changed, but then again, I haven't seen him in probably 4-5 years and hadn't seen any pictures of him in a few years. Crazy how fast kids grow up. Jordan was our first nephew born 15 years ago, just before I got home from my mission. Such craziness... Anyway, great to see you guys!!!

Body Worlds 3 Exhibit at The Leonardo

On Saturday, Jeremy & I went to the Body Worlds exhibit, now at The Leonardo, located at Library Square, downtown Salt Lake City. It was fascinating! You can learn all about your own body by viewing the insides of these humans who have donated their bodies to science. You can also see cross-sections of all sorts of body parts, and they'll usually have one for a non-smoker and one for a smoker. What a difference! It's disgusting!

A big point of the exhibit is to help people "understand more about how their bodies work and how they can break down, so they are empowered to take a more active role in their own health choices." I know even I felt like taking better care of my heart after seeing the exhibit - I'm sure it would make a smoker want to quit even more.

The exhibit really make me wonder how people can see such a complex system that the human body is and NOT believe in a God who created it. Our bodies are spectacular in how we heal ourselves, how we function in optimal circumstances, and how we break down when not treated properly.

I highly recommend going! Tickets are $22, and the exhibit runs through November 15. It's very popular, so get your tickets right away. Just a tip, too...Saturday was very crowded, so if you can possibly go on a weekday, I recommend that.

Guest room is finally done! (well, almost)

After many weeks/months of preparation and shopping, my guest room is finally (sort of) complete! Jeremy hung the shelf last night and I hung the canvas art, so the "decor" is up. I made the headboard from MDF (micro density fiber = cheap, fake wood), brown paint, and lovely ultrasuede covered padding (similar to the headboard in my room). There's even a light rope on the back, for "effect" -- but I'm not sure how "effective" it really is... Jeremy & I framed out the window, which I really like the look of. What do you think?

I have a couple things I still need to accomplish: sewing the curtain panel, finding a coordinating nightstand, and sewing some pillows out of the brown & tan geometric patterned fabric used for the curtain panel.

Go ahead - RATE MY SPACE!!!

Annual Drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon

On Saturday, Jeremy and I took our annual drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon, up and over Guardsman Pass, which leads into Park City. It was a gorgeous fall day with a light rain (providing rainbows), big clouds, and a cool breeze. Utah is so gorgeous!!!

Trip Home to the Tri-Cities

For the long Labor Day Weekend, we drove to our hometown of Tri-Cities, WA, to see Bruce and Mandee's new baby, Cooper. Shaunna Keith, Jeremy, & I had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends. Jeremy & I stayed with life-long friends, Mara & Nate Kraus and their fun kids - plus her dad took us on a great boat ride on the Columbia River. We also did a tour of Kennewick & Richland, visiting all our old houses, including Grandma's, and taking pictures to document how they have changed since we lived there or Grandma and Grandpa lived there. Everything seemed smaller this trip, for some reason - it took less time to get places (than I remember, anyway), and it's grown. The cities have really made some great improvements to the infrastructure, gotten better stores, and spread out. Nice to see some things do change.
It was a great weekend. Thanks for hosting, Mara!!

Jeremy's Home Teaching Experience

These experiences just don't happen every day, so I wanted to share a good one that Jeremy had the other day. He & his home teaching companion had an appointment with a girl, and Jeremy was in charge of giving a spiritual message. He didn't have much time beforehand to prepare anything, but he was thinking about it as he was getting ready to go. He had the thought that he should share what we'd been reading in the Book of Mormon a day or two earlier, about Alma the Younger's conversion in Mosiah 27. So while they were there, they got caught up with her and then he shared his thoughts about how evil these guys were, going around, trying to destroy the church of God, doing some pretty bad stuff. And then an angel appeared to them and they went through this long conversion process, which required a lot of repenting. But even though they had been so bad, the Lord still loved them so much that he forgave their sins. Jeremy shared how amazing that was, that no matter what we do, the Lord loves us and is anxious forgive us - even if we keep making the same mistakes over and over. He bore his testimony to her and closed. The girl started crying and said "thank you so much - I really needed to hear that right now." Both Jeremy & his companion were teary eyed and they all felt the Spirit. She sincerely thanked them for coming and said she really enjoyed having the Priesthood in her home.
When he shared this experience with me, I thought it was pretty amazing and another testament that the Lord loves this girl because He saw to it that she got this message - which required a chain of events or circumstances: Jeremy had to read this chapter and focus on the message, then he had to be worthy to feel the Spirit touch him to share this message with this girl, and then the motivation to act on that prompting and visit this girl he was assigned to.
Heavenly Father truly does use other people as tools to relay messages to His children. I hope we can all help Him out with this important task of helping others, and by doing so, we can show our love for Him in return.

Announcing the arrival of Cooper Burt!!

Meet Cooper Merek Burt. He is my brand-spankin-new nephew, born today on 08/08/08. Isn't that so cool??? He weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and is 19 1/2" long. Mommy & baby are both doing great!

Congratulations, Mandee & Bruce!!!! Can't wait to meet him when we come up for Labor Day Weekend!!

#1 song when I was born...

So I stole this site from my friend Amy. You can find out what song was #1 on the day you were born... mine (November 27) is "I Think I Love You" by The Partridge Family - very cool, but wow, that makes me feel really old!!
http://www.joshhosler.biz/NumberOneInHistory/SelectMonth.htm
Please post a comment and tell me what yours is!

Broadway Rocks! with the Utah Symphony

Saturday night we got to go up to Deer Valley again - this time for a night of Broadway music by 4 featured vocalists. It was great! Rob Evan, who was the second lead in Jekyll & Hyde on Broadway, in '97-'98, was one of them - we even got to talk to him afterwards and he pretended like he remembered us. :)

Thanks to Shaunna & Keith for volunteering at the ticket office at Deer Valley to get us all in for free! Pictured below are me, Jeremy, Shaunna, Keith, Jenny (my cousin's daughter), and her boyfriend, Hank ("The Vice"). It was another beautiful night up in the mountains.