A Big Day in Murray!

OK--so I will admit that Abby and I did spend ~15 minutes in the Costco parking lot watching the ambulances bringing patients from LDS Hospital and helicopters bringing the tiny ICU babies to the new hospital. It is pretty exciting and monumental! I've lived here (0.87 miles away) for nearly 7 years and Mike has been here for almost 4 years so we've watched it from the ground up! We toured the hospital last month and it will be a great addition to our neighborhood. We are so blessed to live in a time and a land where the medical care is so advanced! Modern medicine is nothing short of a miracle!

Our Baby's Growin' Up

What a great day! I can hardly believe that Abby is a year old. After experiencing our loss of Hope and Abby's illnesses when she was born, it was hard to believe that Mike and I would ever celebrate the first birthday of one of our children, but, of course we would have the opportunity! (Sometimes it just seemed a bit distant.) Anyway, perhaps I am partial, but I truly feel that Abby is the smartest, cutest and funnest child I know. She has a spunky personality. She is social and happy. I love her dearly and love being her mom. I couldn't have "created" a better dad for her than Mike. He is extraordinary. Our family has been so blessed and today was one of those fun paydays!

We started the day with a trip to the Living Planet Aquarium. Abby enjoyed it and I am excited to use our passes to return. After that we had a lunch with lots of family. It was wonderful to get together and see so many people (grandparents - Pat and Adele, Dave and Kaye, Leola, Ray and Ellen, Marva and Tom, David and Nancy; aunts and uncles - Tami and Kevin, Tim and Katie, Brian, Kaley, Steph and Ben a bit later in the day; cousins - Brooklyn, Isaac and Jack). Here is an album of birthday party pictures.

Abby the Octopus

Abby is going to be an octopus for Halloween. I doubt you'll see many of those among your little ghosts and goblins this year:) She really loves the outfit--both when it is on and off. When it is off, she'll sit and snuggle up to it and when it is on, well, she just does her normal thing. (I was afraid she'd be bothered by the extra appendages.)

So I have made two trips to Gardner Village this fall to see their fun witches. The first time I went with friends from the neighborhood (Monica and Alicia) and Shana. The following week Shana and I decided to take Abby and Cooper (aka the cow) back in their costumes. Gardner Village is set up with perfect little picture backdrops. We had a nice time and Abby did a pretty good job hamming it up for the camera!

A quiet afternoon

It has been a quiet afternoon--not terribly productive, but relaxing, nonetheless. Here are some assorted pictures. Click on the picture to go to Picasa and to see the picture with a caption. Then, click on "View Album" (will be to the left of the picture) to see the full album.

Running and Remembrance

It has been an enjoyable weekend. Yesterday I woke up at 4:45 and drove to meet my mom and then sister just off the freeway in Sandy and Spanish Fork and we drove to St. George to surprise Brian, who was running in the marathon. We arrived about 20-30 minutes before he crossed the finish line, in just enough time for Tami to walk up the course a bit to meet him with ~1.5 miles to go and run in with him and for mom and I to get along the last bit of the course to cheer him in. I think he was pleased to see us and we enjoyed being there with him. We did a bit of shopping at the outlets and then ate lunch in Cedar with Brian and his traveling/running friend then headed home. (I rode from Cedar to Utah County with Brian.) We were back on the road by 2:30 and after a couple stops I was home by 7:30. Getting in and out of the car so much in one day was rather strange because I felt about 17 lbs. lighter than I usually do when I am loading and unloading the car:) I missed Abby quite a bit--it's the longest I've been away from her I think, but she and Mike handled themselves jut great for the day! (She even got to go to the Priesthood session of conference!)

So yesterday Brian crossed the finish line at about 10:08 so after visiting with him and what not, we didn't hear more than one talk from the morning session of conference. In the afternoon we heard most, but not all after leaving lunch so I look forward to watching some re-runs. Today we had a very nice time watching conference and I think I was most inspired by President Eyring's talk this morning. I think that we could avoid a lot of life's heartaches by remembering--avoiding sin by remembering how sin has felt in the past, overcoming trials by remembering the Lord's promises, treating others well by remembering how much we love them, doing the right things because we remember the promptings of the Spirit. Life will always be tough, but I think that remembering is a key to lightening our heavy loads and reminding us that there is so much more of the good than the bad. I loved his idea of recording God's kindnesses. That is something I'd like to do--and a legacy I'd like to leave my kids. Conference was all good and I feel uplifted.