volleyball pics, thanksgiving, and forgotten carols

so i know volleyball season ended like a million years ago, but i wanted to share some of our pictures we had done for our team this year. they turned out so good!! the infamous molly landon did them and she's pretty much the best. 

i really didn't have anything else to say, other than i love me some volleyball and am forever and always grateful for the opportunity i have to coach. i learn and grow every year from the girls and my fellow coaches and it truly is a blessing in my life.

speaking of being grateful....while we are here, lets talk about thanksgiving!

we are trying to recover over here from the lack of sleep from partying all night errrr night! 

it was a great four day weekend for us! we spent our weekend in pocatello with our families. we played games, had thanksgiving dinner with normans side of the family, went to the new movie moana and i thought it was cute! it had great music. it was grant's first movie in a theater and he did really well! he sat through the whole thing. then we took family pictures which were a disaster...no need to go there right now...still too fresh. ;)

and then last night we had the opportunity to kick off the holiday season by going to the forgotten carols with normans family. i looooove the forgotten carols. i listened to them all growing up and i truly love the messages each song has. bringing it back to our Savior. norman and i walked home after the show, hand in hand, talking about which songs were our favorite, what loved ones we think about during the show that have passed on, and the miracle it truly is that our Savior WAS in fact here on this earth, and how special it is to be able to celebrate Him. 

now that our little family is starting to grow, norman and i are trying to come up with some traditions of our own to help keep the Savior the focus of christmas for us AND our children. it's fun to create new traditions with our little family. i'm always up for some suggestions, too! what are your family's favorite holiday traditions??? 

i hope you all had a great thanksgiving weekend and lets get this christmas party started am i right?????

thanksgiving & christmas 2015

so i'm a little behind on the blogging thing...but i have to record holidays for my sake so here's a little thanksgiving and christmas mashup for ya.

thanksgiving 2015

we were with my family this year for thanksgiving. our family had reserved the ISU institute building so all the little kids could run around and not be cooped up in someone's house. well us bigger cousins are quite the competitive bunch and we (i) decided that we would hold a ping pong tournament. all our family is pretty decent at ping pong so it was quite competitive and a lot of fun. norman and i bought a (cooked) turkey hat that dances for the winner of the tournament. we also played dodgeball, lightening, ate lots of food, watched football, and chatted of course! it was so fun and a nice refreshing change from just eating and sitting around all day. 

christmas 2015

right after normans last class, we were packed and ready to go to pocatello for the break! 2 weeks of partying! we started it off by heading to salt lake to see the lights and go to dinner with my parents, my sister, and her family. i hadn't been in a few years and it's always a special place to be at christmas.

we stayed with my parents the first week and norman's family the second week and had a fabulous time at both. we spent christmas eve with normans family and had a nice dinner and had some funny entertainment from norman's dad, who read us christmas letters to santa from various people (President Monson, Obama, President Benson, Elder Packer, Richard Nixon...etc etc.). We spent christmas morning at my family's house and got spoiled as per usual by both families and had SO much fun playing santa for our little guy. grant still doesn't fully understand the santa thing...or the christmas thing...but he liked opening presents. (except for when i wrapped one of his presents in an old graham cracker box and he thought it was actually graham crackers and got real upset when he found out it was just clothes....)

he got lots of train stuff this year. he's currently obsessed with trains and cars. santa also brought him a bouncy horse (that stayed at my parents...no room for that in a tiny 2 bedroom apt), and a basketball hoop!

i couldn't help but think how weird it is that next year we will have TWO babies at christmas time. it just keeps getting better and better.

we played our annual christmas present game with my family (which i didn't get pictures of) and it was a blast as per usual. probably one of my favorite parts of christmas. 

At our big annual christmas party on my mom's side of the family we did a costume competition where everyone had to dress up in what they felt was the most "christmas-y". well, me being pregnant, i thought it would be perfect to dress up as mary, joseph, and a shepherd. grant won his age group for best costume, and our family won as the "best family costume". it was a blast!

the power went out for about an hour and a half on christmas eve so norm and i played santa's helpers in the dark, with a head lamp, putting stuff together!

hope everyone had a great holiday season as well and a late merry christmas to you all!!

giving lots of thanks

Thanksgiving was with my side of the family this year. We spent it at my moms house with cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, a grandpa, and lots of food of course. unfortunately, my cousin and her family got sick so they couldn't come....we were all SO sad. :( but here's some pics of some of the rest of us!

norman and i have so much to be thankful for this year, it's almost overwhelming. have you ever had times in your life where everything...and i mean everything just seems to work out almost perfectly? like i couldn't have planned it any better myself? yeah....me neither.....until recently. i don't know what we did to be so blessed but whatever it is we'd better keep it up.

first....we are so beyond blessed with a healthy little baby boy growing rapidly inside of me every day. i keep having moments where it hits me and i'm like holy crap....i'm having a baby. in like 3 months......wow.

second....norman has done soooo good in school this semester so far. always a blessing when you're going into a major that has math with no numbers ...and stuff like that...

third....when norman and i got pregnant we honestly didn't have a clue how we were going to make it work monetarily. but we didn't care. we knew we were supposed to have a baby and we knew that because we knew that....all would work out. it's been pretty stressful at times trying to figure out budgets to make things work...and we still really didn't have much figured out as to how we were going to make it work. but, the day before thanksgiving we got the best news!

back in september norman saw a paid internship opening at a structural engineering company here in town. so he applied...he wasn't super qualified because he wasn't very far in school and such...but they called him in for an interview anyway. the interview couldn't have gone better and we thought for sure we were going to get it. it was the perfect job....they work around your school...they keep you on as an intern until you graduate and then hire you for their company. they then pay for your masters degree if that is a route you would like to take {which norman does}. norman wants to go to the u of i for his masters in engineering management and they have a campus here in town where he could get that masters degree and work for this company at the same time. it seemed like a dream job.

they told him they would let him know within a week....well a week went by and we didn't hear anything. so we contacted them and they told us they hadn't made a decision yet. this same thing continued for 2 more months. every week norman would send them an email asking about the job and they would respond with the same answer. we began to lose hope....until the day before thanksgiving. norman got a call..and it was them. they wanted him to start on monday! we could not believe it! 

we just felt so so blessed and extra thankful on thanksgiving. and being surrounded by fabulous family is a nice reminder of how blessed we are, too. it has just been a really great year...we are looking forward to the next one with lots of changes for norman and i.

happy thanksgiving!

i swear we had a thanksgiving

 

soooooooo....friends, i didn't take any...not one...picture on thanksgiving. or really any pictures at all over the break. besides the two below from temple square....pretty lame. but i swear we really did have thanksgiving! i guess i was so excited to be out of school for a week i didn't have time to pull the ol' camera phone out. ...errr...something.

 

whatevs...this is what you get.

 

we had a marvelous thanksgiving with the reece side of the family. they always have a lot of fun on the day of thanks. we get a gym at the church and we eat {of course} and play dodgeball and lightening and volleyball and what have you...it is so much fun. don't get me wrong, i love spending thanksgiving with my family and seeing everyone....but we don't play no dodgeball, football, volleyball or any other kind of ball games...and i think it's almost necessary on thanksgiving to do so.

 

 after we finished up the fesitivities with the fam, norm and i headed for utah for the rest of the weekend.



 

norman's mission companion and friend {marcus hoskins...who we both love so much...and his family....:)} was getting married in the salt lake temple and had invited norman and myself to attend...and of course we did. it wasn't until saturday so norman and i went and stayed with my cousin, mekelle, and her family in heber from thursday night to saturday morning. it was fun spending time with them. we played lots and lots of games {in which all of them i won...norm hates it :)} and some basketball.

 

saturday we went to the sealing {i'll expound on that momentarily},  then the luncheon, then norm and i headed back to temple square to walk around city creek and see the lights on temple square. {which we actually didn't end up seeing cause norm and i got into an argument and ended up leaving temple square right before they turned them on...stupid...i know...more on that later as well...probably another post..it's a good one}.

 

so all in all it was a fantabulous break. :)

 

now i wanted to say a few things about the sealing i went to. i just wanted to say i learned sooooo much. it was so good and the spirit there was so strong. the sealer was the grandpa of the bride which made it really special. i won't go in to much detail about what i learned but one piece of advice he gave them that stuck with me was this:

 

"don't try to change each other. focus on making the other one happy, and when they are happy, they will know the changes they need to make."

 

i loved this. absolutely loved it. because it is so true. to some of you, you're probably thinkin..uuuhh..morg...that is really not that cool. but guys, it really is. when you're married arguments happen and people are imperfect. and it's hard. and it sometimes feels overwhelming thinking of the things you need to "change" so that maybe some of those arguments won't happen. but if you strip it down to the plain and simple, like this statement....it makes perfect sense. it was so nice to go to the temple, witness a marriage, and hear beautiful words from wise people.

 

hope everyone else had a great week as well. i swear i'll take more pictures at christmas :) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my favorite season

 



 

 

i absolutely love this season! we have been doing some very christmas-y things over here. including hot chocolate dates, putting up christmas decor, making yummy soups, listening to pandora christmas station, and i'm happy to report that i probably have over half my christmas shopping done! and i already have purchased normans' anniversary present...that was a relief cause that's comin up real quick {dec 11}.

 

i hope everyone else is having a fabulous week of off school. i sure am. happy thanksgiving!

Puerto Rico Finale.......

So I know I've been back from Puerto Rico for like 2 weeks now, but I'm just finally getting the time to post the rest of our trip.

So...here it goes:

first up: on Wednesday Kelsey took me, my mom, Jenna, and Norman to the El Yunque Rainforest. There is a water fall that you can swim under and we wanted to go see it and of course...swim!

{this is Norman, Me, Kelsey, and Jenna in front of a little waterfall we saw on our way up}

On the way up, we also found this old tower that we decided to climb. :)

{Kelsey at the top of the tower laughin at Norman and I struggling trying to take a picture}

{Norm and Me at the top of the tower with the ocean and rainforst in the background}

We then finally got to the trail that heads into where the waterfall is and went on our way.

We saw some beautiful things on our way there, also saw one not so beautiful thing.

{Norman pretending to eat this dead, ripped up by something nasty bird that we found on this post...yummo}

{Norman, Jenna, and my mom walkin down the trail}

We finally arrived at the beautiful waterfall:

{Kelsey, Norman, and I forging our way into the waterfall}

{Norm and I about to join Kelsey who is already under the waterfall}

{Norman, Me, and Kelsey trying to see and laughing uncontrollably under the waterfall}

{we swam out to talk for a bit before going back under....it was a lot of work to get in there}

{all of us after...about to leave}

The following day was none other than....thanksgiving!Us ladies stayed home and slaved away in the kitchen while the boys went to the ward Turkey Bowl and then afterwards had a little dip in the ocean to cool off. Definitely different than the Turkey Bowls in Idaho. :)

{my mom making potatoes n rolls n such}

{my dad relaxin}

{Kelsey making her dough for her fabulous pies she made. Apple and Cherry. SOOO good}

{London helped me make my favorite thing about Thanksgiving...DEVILED EGGS!}

{all of us ready to eat...my dad is taking the picture}

{London and Jenna at the little kid table}

The food!

After we all ate, we took a nap and then I went outside and took a couple quick family pictures of Kelsey and Dan.

The following day was Norman and mine's last day in Puerto Rico. We all decided to go to this beach that was CLEAR across the other island. Took us about a 2 hour drive to get there, but we wanted to go to this beach because it was a good surfing beach and we all wanted to try to surf.

{We have just arrived. Jenna and London playing in the back of the truck, I'm holding Rian and my mom is getting stuff ready}

And this is what we were looking at :) ...

beautiful!

{London and Jenna sittin on the back of the truck}

{dad, mom and London chillin on the beach}

{London wanting to go in the water with me...so cute}

The boys went out and tried surfing first, so Kelsey and I of course...took pictures. But don't worry, when Kelsey and I went out, no one got pictures of us :) We did try though and it is SOOOO hard. Just so ya know.

{Dan and Norman in the water, Kelsey and I taking pictures}

Back on the beach...were my sweet neices

{Quinn Gracie Riley}

{Rian Palmer Riley}

{Kelsey}

It was such a beautiful day and such a great ending to our trip! We had so much fun and it is truly a beautiful island.

When we got home from the beach my sister, my mom, and I went to Breaking Dawn at the Plaza las Americas. It's a huge mall down there.

The movie was actually a lot better than I expected it to be and it was really fun night out with the girlies!

{here we all are in front of this huge tree in the mall...we all look pretty gross cause we just hopped in the shower then left right after to catch the movie}

We had a fabulous time in Puerto Rico and miss all of them already. It was definitely a thanksgiving to remember! I'm so grateful fro great family that are also my friends that i get to share such special times with. I love them all so much and I loved spending time with them doing new things in a place that is so indescribably beautiful. Thanks for the memories :)