June 19th 2012
January 1st 2010
1. Read 9 pages a day in the Book of Mormon for six months. This will get me through the book three times. In this time I intend to keep an updated blog reporting my progress and the things I've learned. Ultimately through this process I intend to become more familiar with the book and improve my testimony of it, as well as improve my relationship with Christ.
2. I have succeeded in taking off most of my pregnancy weight, but definitely not all of it. I have always wanted to reach 120 pounds... maybe this will be the year! I haven't weighed myself in a while but i think i'm in the mid 130s. So i guess the first thing i'll have to do for this goal is buy a new battery for my scale. Basically my plan is to limit snacks and work out at least 3 days per week. when the weather gets good i plan to start running again. i want to get up to 10k weekends. This is a bit of a lofty goal, but if i start with little one-milers i should get there eventually. this i will report at the beginning of each blog. maybe :)
Nick's goals:
Let me preface these goals with the stipulation that most will be done during the summer when I will have more free time...
Academic
Maintain a GPA higher than a 3.5. Read one non-fiction novel and two fictional.
Physical
Finally do P90X. Perhaps get Steve back on the bandwagon with me.
Spiritual
Learn more of Christ by finishing Jesus the Christ and the New Testament.
Creative
Complete one Black and White drawing and finish the rest of our home videos.
October 1st 2010
Nick is doing really well in school this semester and is working harder than ever. I love his energy and his enthusiasm. The best days are Saturdays though when we can lounge in bed for the morning instead of him taking off before i'm even up (usually - sometimes jill can have pretty early mornings).
We spoke in church on sunday about the Ensign talk from Nov. 2009 entitled "let virtue garnish thy thoughts." i addressed the virtues charity, humility, and integrity, while nick went into more of the controlling your thoughts aspect. we enjoyed preparing the talks and were happy because all of our parents and my grandparents and sisters came to see us. afterward we had a nice little backyard picnic.
i love the fall! i love watching the leaves change color but most of all i love the weather! the cool crisp air feels amazing sometimes! unfortunately fall, like spring, tend to be very short lived before we're plunged into extreme cold and heat. One reason i'm grateful to live in the U.S. is due to this exact thing, though. living in Brazil for a year and a half made me realize how spoiled we are. we get A/C and central heat! in brazil i had an oscillating fan and a space heater. it was no fun to take showers in the winter.
we're looking forward to the holidays! halloween is one of my favorites. we haven't decided what we want to be, yet... i'm working on something brilliant.
isn't it funny that most holidays revolve around food? halloween speaks of candy, pumpkins, and hot wassail or apple cider, thanksgiving turkey and cranberries, and christmas has everything from oranges to candy canes designed to make it special. for us even new years has a special holiday menu. if i could have two wishes in life i would wish that calories for me would no longer count, and that i could have enough money to eat whatever i wanted including endless fondue and sushi. unfortunately for me calories absolutely DO count and my pocketbook says i can get good sushi about once a year if i really want it. these setbacks, however, do not stop me from enjoying food as much as possible. i have resolved recently to never waste my palate on nasty prepackaged processed food every again if i can help it. i try my best to always cook dinner and i spend hours scouring cookbooks for things that look enticing. sometimes i have to make little substitutions here and there to make something more affordable, and sometimes i have to face the fact that my husband is a little bit of a picky eater (he doesn't like tomatoes, onions, or veggies in general, but he will eat some of them if prepared or served in the correct way). another current struggle is my personal diet of no dairy, no chocolate, and no nuts. all things which i have cheated on recently. Jillian pays me back, though, when i choose to stray from these guidelines.
i guess i thought of enough to say, huh?
lots of love to you all!
September 2nd 2010
well, jillian is almost 6 months old! she can roll over, sits up on her own, and we've tried everything from offering solid food to prying her little stubborn lips apart to get some rice cereal down her but she's just not having it. i'm still quite taken with her, though. she can be quite a moody baby, but fortunately those moods now include happy and friendly! :) i love her baby babbles and her little laugh is one of my favorite sounds in the world! currently she likes sleeping on her side with her little back arched so her head is practically facing backward.
nick is back in school for 12 credit hours this semester as well as working 40 hours a week at pinnacle security as the supervisor of the account creations department. he is exhausted all the time! i feel so bad for him and i wish i could make his life a little easier. i try to refrain from sympathizing by pointing out that there was a point in my college career that i was packed so tight that sometimes i couldn't go to bed for close to 30 hours at a time... he is doing awesome, though and i'm so proud of him and grateful for all his hard work! we are willing to accept donations on his behalf, by the way. anything from cash to concert tickets would be appropriate! ;)
anyway be sure to check back every 6 months or so for updates! xoxo
December 7th 2009
for the past few years i have really been making an attempt to get to know my Savior better in the hopes of becoming more like him. i know i have fallen monstrously short of that goal and i'm grateful that life continues so that i may keep trying to be better. in the long run i can see progress, but never in the day to day! anyway, this article illustrates some attributes of the Savior in such a poignant way! first he illustrates the story of the prince and the pauper by mark twain. he makes the point that the prince is much more able to rule his kingdom righteously because he switched places with the pauper and lived among the poor of his land and had to work and survive alongside them for a time. i thought it was a great parallel! he goes on to quote an idea from neal a maxwell who used the scriptures in alma 7 to explain that the savior had to suffer all manners of afflictions because not all sorrow and pain comes as a result of sin. i really loved the last story he tells about a taxi ride home from the airport where he got stuck in traffic. he was backseat driving telling the driver where to go and what to try to get through traffic to no avail. after he was completely frustrated the cab driver shared with him the fact that a traffic jam was really no big deal - the cab driver was from Afghanistan where he had seen "villages bombed, people starving, men and women, and children fleeing for their lives, and war and destruction and chaos on every side." thus a traffic jam was not so much to worry about. this gave Elder porter a heightened sense of perspective and he was able to again concentrate on the Savior and the Christmas holiday he was about to share with his family and be grateful that the traffic jam was the worst of his problems, not the least of them.
in my life i do make a valiant attempt to make sure i keep things in perspective, but i think we all lose that perspective every so often. i hope, though, this christmas season that we can each think objectively about what's most important in our lives. in mine i do my best to put the Savior first and after Him comes my husband, then family, then church, then school, then work. all of these things need attention but i try not to let any of them take over my life for too long!
i feel so immensely blessed in my life! i have a wonderful husband and family, i'm healthy, i have a nice and warm home and i'm getting a good education and i'm getting ready to have a baby girl next year! not to mention graduate... (YES!!!) and... we just booked a cruise to mexico next october (my graduation gift...)
love and hugs to you all!
November 14th 2009
June 11, 2009
on trek to martin's cove you hear a lot about the martin and willie handcart companies and the casualties and conditions suffered. on the first day i was asked why the companies didn't just wait and go to zion the next year when it would have been safe. my idea was that in this life there are certain experiences that we must go through in order to draw nearer to God. i believe that the saints who embarked on the journey to zion with those companies were sanctified through their suffering. as the trek went on i heard more insightful explanations in addition to mine. brother howard mentioned that the ground that was trod by the handcart companies was hallowed ground. in his interpretation as to what that meant he stated that perpaps it was hallowed because in that place people paid a price to know God. i believe that to be very accurate. then 12-year-old patrick made a comment that impressed me deeply. he said that when the saints arrived in salt lake they must have been very dirty, but they ended up being so clean. it's inspiring to see how perceptive so many youth are. i know that testimonies can come at any time, but even at a young age a testimony can be made strong.
i can't believe tomorrow is my last day working at independent study! i'm nervous about the drive out to PA. nick is still jobless but we're praying for that situation to improve! :) the internship should be pretty neat, though i'm not 100% sure what i will be doing. i know i'm working in the construction department of PENNDOT. (don't worry, i don't actually have to build anything). from what i understand i will be making site visits and make sure the contractors are doing their jobs correctly. i feel very underqualified so i hope it involves me following around a lisenced engineer and nodding my head to say that i understand! the drive is hopefully pretty fun, though, we'll get to stop in cheyenne and omaha - places i'd probably never go otherwise. i'm super excited to visit my uncle andy and his family!
this weekend we go up to kenny's cabin - probably the last time we'll see kenny for a couple of years! he will be serving a mission in mexico. kenny you are awesome! :) i'm glad laura and jake can come up... maybe we'll do a family picture while we're there! i don't know how i'll survieve without them for two months!
more to come! probably in september.
March 12, 2009
And back by popular demand! I am not finishing my math homework right now in exchange for this time i'm using to type to you my friends and family! I was going to write last month about an event we participated in called ski for light. i didn't quite manage it then so i'll do it now. i've been feeling pretty antsy lately so i thought that doing some volunteer work would relieve that stress a bit. ski for light is a program where blind men and women from all over the world come and compete in a cross-country ski race. we were assistants with the timing of the competetors. we met a lot of great people and it was really inspiring to see the skiers and their guides! some of them were even sitting in special chairs and skiing with their arms! holy upper-body strength, batman! i'll see if i can get some pictures posted. some of their outfits were wild!
Last week we celebrated our one year aniversary! is anyone else as shocked as i am that a whole year has already passed? it doesn't seem like that long. though i must say, the minute i married nick i felt like we had always been together. i can't imagine going back to a time when i wasn't married to him. he makes me as happy as i can be every day! to commemorate our aniversary nick planned a surprize trip for us! he took me to a nice resort in mesquite, nv! he also sprung for a full-body massage for me! he also took my golfing for my first time ever and then to vegas for a night on the town. we took some pictures at the wax museum we visited that i'll try to get posted soon. they are mediocre because somehow my bag containing all of my clothes and the camera got left at home (an unwanted expense popped up when i realized i had to replace all my essentials for the weekend!) so i had to take the pics w/my phone. it was a fabulous trip though and we both enjoyed just kicking back and spending some quality time together.
right now we're on the downhill side of this semester and trying to stay afloat! i'm in the process of looking for an internship this summer and we're hopeful we'll get one at the DOT in PA. fingers crossed and much praying and i think it could work out. :)
love you all! until the next post comes splurging forth!
January 21, 2009
We just got back from an awesome trip up to Kenny's family cabin in Idaho. On the way home we decided we'd do a shout out to all of our friends! So here it is:
We hope you guys know how much we love you and appreciate your friendship and support. I know we'd do anything we could for you if you should ever happen to need anything. I hope you feel like you can come to us for anything. If we can do anything to be better friends please let us know. I hope we can always stay close. We are excited to see what the future has in store for us... It's crazy how time changes things... we move apart, we get married, we have children, go to school, graduate, start careers, buy cars/boats/houses/dogs, etc! It never stops! One thing, however, will always be constant, we will always be here when you need us. We will always want to be participants in your lives and know about any event be it big or small that we can share with you. We wish you all so much happiness and rich lives! We love you!
Love, Nick & Bree
January 11, 2009
I figure I may keep up with this if i can just keep it short. and also if i don't bother capitalizing or spell checking anything (that's a disclaimer to any who are expecting an error proof blog).
So the year is new! nick and i have both started school. i'm not sure what classes he's taking... hmm... literature, prehistoric life, some math class, institute, and two different astronomy classes. i have math (multi-variable calc for those who know what that is), intro to transportation engineering, dynamics of fluids, environmental engineering, and a materials class where we learn about concrete and asphalt and fun things like that. it looks like it will be an interesting semester and so far (this whole week!) i've been able to keep up with everything! that could be due to the fact that nothing is hard yet but we'll see.
Right now nick is still working at pinnacle security. they seem to really like him here. he gets promotions and bonuses left and right without him even asking for them! if you ask him he'll tell you it's because he's so charming. i may not say exactly that but oh well... I still work at independent study at BYU. i really enjoy it. only girls work in my department. we did have a boy interview once... but he unfortunately didn't make the team. (we have had boys there in the past, but they've all moved on). i am a student supervisor and i really enjoy working so closely with my boss.
In church nick is the first counselor in the sunday school presidency and i am a visiting teaching supervisor. we've made quite a few friends in the ward and really enjoy this area.
We don't, however, love the parking lot of ice that has formed behind our house. or in other places. we've both gotten our cars stuck innumerable times this winter! on the plus side nick did get to go snowboarding this winter! first time since he's been back from his mission! yay! lucky boy.
All right that's as good as it gets for now!
P.S.
I am including the poem I wrote for my mom this Christmas! Enjoy! :)
To My Mother
I can’t think of a brilliant beginning to this verse
So I’ll skip these lines and get passed that curse
You always were one who I could rely on,
You’ve been more that once my shoulder to cry on.
I’m glad I grew up so that now we can be friends.
I hope that you know how awesome it’s been
A mother, a teacher, a mentor for life,
Even when I put you through trouble and strife.
Thank goodness those teenage years are behind us
But even if more of that sad stuff might find us,
We’re in this together; we’ll fight hand in hand,
‘Cause you are my mother, so I know where to stand.