I Feel So Blessed!!

I feel so happy to have come out here and spent two weeks with my sister Emily, so I just had to make you all understand how fun it's been. At the same time, I miss my husband terribly and I can't wait to be back by his side. You can see how Heavenly Father has put so much love in my life. What bigger or more wonderful blessing can you have than that?

So here's a little about why this trip has been awesome:

SERVICE TIME
Emily just had her third little baby about six weeks ago, so I brought my kids here to spend two weeks helping out with her older two boys, Adam and Peter, and the housework. (I guess I should mention that the reason we’re here when Annelise is 6 weeks old is because she came 5 weeks early and we already had our plane tickets…) It's been so wonderful to be doing someone else's housework and not have to worry about my own at all! It's actually fun doing it for someone else, you know? It feels good to be focusing on someone else's needs instead of my own and it has really strengthened my testimony of how service is more for the benefit of the server than anyone else. That's why we're supposed to do it. It feels great!

GOOD TIMES
Ems and I like a lot of the same things, so we have to take advantage of the opportunity to do those things together whenever we're in the same city. This trip, we've watched a lot of British drama (Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, Cranford…), done a couple of craft projects (making Cal a super- cute Superman cape to match Adam and Peters’), made some yummy food (café rio salad and TWO batches of monkey bread, among other things...), and got our haircut together. We even took before and after shots to celebrate the victory over frumpiness. These are included below, for your entertainment.
Before:

After.

HILARIOUS TIMES
I think I laugh harder with Emily than any other person. I think that’s my favorite thing about being with her. It’s so fun to be with someone who thinks I’m funny, and who I think is hilarious. Anyway, here's a list of some of our quotable quotes, plus a few more pictures of our cute kids:

Quotable Quotes (Maybe you just had to be there...)
"It says here that exotic dancers make the most money
in the height of their fertility." "Don't we all?"
"Forever isn't even a time frame. It's a length of time."
"Poo." (No response...) "Mommy, I said poo!" "I know Adam..." "Put soap in my mouth!"
"Okay, wait. I don't understand a thing you've
been talking about for the last 10 minutes!"
"My blender is digressing?"

Thanks Emily and Weston for a great visit. Thanks also to the Geoff for letting me come out here for this long and for being such a phenomenally great and kind husband to come home to. I’ve had so much fun here, but I miss you, need you, and can't wait to get you back in my life.