Feeling thankful

I'm back! I didn't intend to take such a long break, but I needed the time away. Andrew and I spent a long weekend in Idaho with my family, and it was nice to sleep in, sing while my brother played the guitar, listen to Christmas music, stuff envelopes with my sister's wedding invitations and eat my mom's delicious Thanksgiving dinner. She even made pistachio pudding salad, which is my absolute favorite.

While we stayed away from the big Black Friday sales, we did finally score a nativity set that we love (we've been looking for one for a while), some cheap blackout curtains and a few little Christmas decorations. Andrew and my brother Reggie also tried chocolate-covered maple-flavored bacon soda (I tasted it, and it wasn't as horrible as it sounds), and we spent some time playing old Sega games with Reggie, too.

I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful! I always enjoy having time with my family.

Reunion

We went from one family reunion to the next this past week! Andrew's brother and his family came into town from New York to baptize their oldest daughter, which meant that Andrew's other siblings (he's the youngest of eight) traveled back home to spend time with them.

Andrew's sister, her husband and their two kids stayed with us Wednesday through Sunday, and we had fun setting the tent up inside so Mya could "camp," having barbecues and watching the fireworks on Friday and Saturday.

It's been a jam-packed summer, but I've enjoyed it — and it's not over yet! We have a road trip planned soon that I've been anticipating for months.

Hope your Monday is excellent!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I was away from my family this year because we spent last weekend with them to celebrate my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary, my grandma's 80th birthday and my aunt's 50th birthday -- and we also watched my brother in his ridiculously funny turn as Edna Turnblad in "Hairspray." Seriously, he was absolutely hysterical. I have never laughed so hard (or been as horrified) in a play. 

We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with Andrew's family instead, and I took an extra-long nap when I got home, in part due to food coma and in part due to a cold that I'm fighting. It's been a good day.

And, while I didn't participate in the Facebook gratitude marathon, I wanted to list a few things that I'm thankful for:

• Family. My family is very direct, and we speak our minds to each other -- which can often lead to some heated arguments when we're all together. But the past year has been pretty wonderful. We have fun going to cheesy movies (remember The Vow, Lauren?), perusing the racks at DI in Rexburg and eating my mom's to-die-for caramel dumplings.

Side note: My sister (in the stripes) told me I'd probably hit a growth spurt since everyone kept telling me I was so tall. Seriously? I am 25. Don't people hit their peak at like age 20? And she's about to graduate from nursing school. Highly suspect.

• Andrew's family. I'm so grateful that I married into a family who loves me and accepts me. My mother-in-law is always willing to help me with sewing mishaps that occur or just lend a listening ear, and Andrew's siblings are constantly inviting us over for dinner on Sundays. We also frequently stay with his sister in Idaho when we're visiting my parents and actually stayed up till nearly 2 a.m. talking and laughing with them last weekend (sorry, Mary and Daniel).
• My amazing husband. Who orders birthday cake Oreos online because I'm disappointed that we can't find them in stores? Who brings the space heater out and plugs it in two feet away from me because my hands are cold? Who goes out to the car to grab the iPod I left in it at 11 at night because I'm afraid of the dark? That's Andrew. I love him so much.

There are so many things I'm grateful for, but what's better than family? I hope you were able to spend this holiday with yours.

Family and fireworks

Since a lot of Andrew's family was together this weekend for his newest nephew's baby blessing, we had a mini family reunion on Saturday! His brother Chris rented an inflatable bounce house with a water slide, so all of the kids played in that for quite a while. I went down it twice and decided bounce houses are just not as fun for adults as they are for kids, especially when you have to crouch down just to crawl inside it and end up covered in mud and grass.

Which is why I spent my time sitting in the kiddy pool. At first, it was just me, Franklin and Isabel. (And clearly I need to get out in the sun more. My legs are blindingly white.)

Then a few more kids hopped in.

And that was when I got out of the pool and stood by Andrew as he took shot after shot of kids going down the slide. I think they turned out pretty well.

The kids had a blast playing in the water, and it actually cooled off quite a bit in the afternoon -- which was great, since I didn't put on any sunscreen. Oops.

We finished off the day with streamer and parachute fireworks in a nearby field and then the colorful sparkly ones back at the house. Since Andrew took most of the photos in the post, I am proud to say that I took the firework pictures. The ones I planned on didn't work out on July 4th, so I'm glad that Utah has another holiday in July for makeup firework pictures.

Even baby Amree loved them! She was clapping her hands in delight.

Pictures I took of the kids playing with sparklers tonight will hopefully be up tomorrow. And you can check out the pictures of Glacier National Park on Wanderlust and Weekends, too. I'll be adding photos of Bannack State Park soon.

My Oscar-winning haircut

The title isn't in my words, but my sweet friend's. I'll let you be the judge. What do you think?

Yes. I look sad. But I am refusing to smile with the braces on right now after the girl who lives in the basement condo below us asked if I was a high school student yesterday. Seriously? I do not look like I'm in high school (which I realize seems like an eternity away to this girl, who is probably about 11), and if I were in high school, where are my parents? I live with a boy in a condo and go to high school? Kids.

Anyway. I really, really like it. I'm still adjusting to it, and sometimes I miss my long hair, but it's curling up really nicely now and the short length is forcing me to actually style it. It frames my face, and I really can do a lot with it. I'm glad I chopped it off. Here's a view from the back:

See? Curly and fun. I actually had no idea what it looked like from the back, so I'm glad Andrew took this for me. In fact, I'm glad that it looks this good today. I had an awful morning in which I forgot to wash the conditioner out of my hair and then had to bend over the faucet to rinse it out when I was already almost late to work. Needless to say, it did not get the care it needed this morning.

It has been an interesting week. We've now had family with us off and on for a month. Fortunately, Reggie has made a full recovery and will be going home (hopefully) next week. We're happy that he's feeling so much better and are grateful for your prayers and thoughts.

One parting thought. I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker yesterday when I discovered a document with a bunch of spelling/grammatical errors that was about to go out in a divisional newsletter. The document had already gone out to one team, and she was upset that I would "waste my time" finding the original document, fixing all the errors, resaving it as a PDF and sending it back to the team so it could be uploaded to the Web again.

It bothered me because she absolutely did not care that there were errors in it and that a whole bunch of people had gotten an important document that was flawed -- and she thought that my job, editing, wasn't worthwhile.

I know that I am a grammar nazi and most people are not, but spelling and grammar are important. Imagine if your favorite book had no punctuation. Think about how you feel when someone misspells your name (OK, maybe that doesn't bother you, but it bothers me). It signifies that a person was too careless or in too big of a hurry or -- heaven forbid -- too ignorant to do something right. Our insurance agent misspelled my name on all of our documents even after we told him several times to fix it -- and guess what. We don't have that agent anymore. That obviously wasn't the only reason, but it was just one of the ways he showed us that he didn't care about us.

I'm not saying that everyone who spells something wrong or splices a comma is careless or ignorant. Sometimes you spell someone's name wrong because you have no idea how it's spelled -- or because someone told you the wrong spelling. But taking the time to spell and punctuate things correctly, on the other hand, shows that you care and you want whatever you're working on to be flawless.

OK, that's enough from Grammar Girl tonight. Just wanted to put that out there. My job does matter! :)

Randall's wedding

Andrew and I drove to Idaho Friday night to attend my brother Randall's wedding in the Idaho Falls Temple on July 30. It was a beautiful ceremony, and the reception and wedding luncheon, held at a friend's house just outside of St. Anthony, were stunning. Even the weather cooperated!

Here are a few of the photos Andrew took at the reception. I was manning the guest book and handing out favors. :) Congratulations, Randall and Meg! We're excited for you to start your new life together.

Going fourth again

Here is the second installment of the Wilcox family reunion/4th of July pictures, as promised. :)

We went to the zoo Monday morning with Andrew's grandpa, parents, siblings and nieces and nephews and spent a few hours there. The weather was perfect. It was pretty cool and started raining just as we left. Normally the zoo is one of my LEAST favorite places (read: I hate smelly animals, screaming kids, broken water fountains, etc.), but this one was actually pretty fun.

The final installment of photos will come tomorrow. I'm too tired to keep going through them! :)

Going Fourth

We had the Wilcox family reunion over the 4th of July weekend, and Andrew and I took enough pictures in three days to make up for taking practically none of ourselves since we've been married! :)

To start with, we celebrated Grandpa Wertz's birthday on Saturday with Andrew's extended family. He turned 97 on July 3 and is still going strong! We sure love him.

We enjoyed plenty of homemade pizza and had fun taking pictures of our cute nieces and nephews.

Since I get bored reading posts that have 50 million pictures of people I don't know, I'll save the pictures of the ZOO for tomorrow. :) Until then, friends!

With one Accord

Wow. I am just so funny with the blog titles lately! Not. If that fabulous headline didn't give it away, I got a new car last Tuesday -- yes, the day after I sold my little Cabrio and my heart was breaking. I have a talent for selling cars (and no patience for shopping for new ones).

It's a 2004 Honda Accord, and it has a killer stereo, power seats, a nice interior, massive trunk and plenty of room for hauling stuff around -- eventually. It also has a V6 engine, which may get me into trouble soon. :)

In other news, my parents and youngest sibling, Reggie, came down Friday night to visit us! It was an abbreviated trip because my mom had to be back on Sunday to teach her YW lesson, but it was nice to have them here. We didn't do much, but here are a few of the things we did.

- Stayed up until 1 a.m. watching Napoleon Dynamite
- Slept in for hours Saturday morning
- Went to the fabric store to fix my sewing machine
- Bought a bunch of secondhand children's books for my collection and my mom's elementary library
- Had yummy turkey burgers that Andrew barbecued
- Went to another barbecue with some friends and ate too much seviche and guacamole
- Ate giant milkshakes from Iceberg

I miss my family already, but I'll see them again in another month because my brother, Randall, is getting married July 30. This is crazy to me. Everyone is growing up!

Seven-year-olds and sleepovers

Andrew and I had our niece, Elsie, over for a sleepover on Friday night. Since I don't have a picture of her, I thought I'd include this one. She is the farthest to the right, in the green shirt with the black flower in her hair.

Elsie, who has four younger brothers and no sisters, was SO EXCITED to come to our house that she packed her bag five days early. Andrew picked her up at about 5:30, and we made macaroni and cheese together, watched Barbie: Thumbelina and Beauty and the Beast and read a Berenstain Bears book before bedtime.

Andrew had to work the next morning, so Elsie and I made valentines, played Trouble and went bowling -- on the Wii. She made sure to make extra valentines for her brothers to work on at home and for both Andrew and me. I hope she had fun, because it was fun to have a cute seven-year-old to keep me company for a little while. :)

Thankful

We have officially hit winter! Despite all of the snow, we did have a lovely weekend -- unfortunately, we neglected to take any pictures, so I decided this photo from last January would have to do until we take some new pictures.

The week didn't start out so well, however. The bank wouldn't let Andrew leave work early during the blizzard on Tuesday, (Overstock was letting people go at 3 o'clock so they'd make it home safely) and he got hit twice on the way home from work. He wasn't hurt at all, thank goodness, but he was shaken up and the passenger door is completely smashed in. To rub salt in the wound, the insurance company has claimed that he is at fault (even though he was hit by a guy going too fast on the icy roads), so now we're responsible for the deductible. Happy Thanksgiving!

Once I calmed down from that one, we were able to enjoy Thanksgiving with Andrew's family! Every one of his siblings and all of their kids, including our sweet new nephew, Camden, were there -- which hasn't happened in years, Andrew told me. It was fun to have everyone together and enjoy way too much food.

We drove up to Idaho after Andrew got off work on Friday for another Thanksgiving celebration. It was fun to see the new Harry Potter movie with my parents and sister (my brothers were being sticks-in-the-mud), spend time with my good friend Abby and run into friends from BYU-I unexpectedly. Even though our trips to Idaho are usually short and sweet, I always relish them.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving! Happy snowy weather!

Sweet November

So, I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, but it's because I've had SO much going on! Here's a quick rundown of my life since October:

- I found an adorable apartment about 10 minutes away from work.

- I made great friends in my singles ward in Alpine who don't want me to leave.

- I went trick-or-treating for the first time in about 10 years.

- I coded articles with HTML and they're online!

- I bought a real, full-sized bed!

And if that weren't enough, I decided to post pics from Halloween so you can all see the CUTE cousins I'm going to be leaving this weekend when I move into my new place.

Life is good! And it's even better when you have amazing family around.