What I Love about Christmas

There are many favorite things that I love about Christmas. Like the usuals: Most everyone is more pleasant with the thoughts of love, peace, hope and joy, the Christmas lights and pretty decorations, going to temple square, the treats and sweets, candy, pecan brittle and English Toffee (yummy), yearly traditions of making gingerbread houses with my daughter and brother and I love to watch the old classic movies - "Miracle on 34th and It's a Wonderful Life" are just two of my favorites. I love to watch gently falling snow as it lays a white blanket on the ground, covering everything in brilliant, sparkling white diamonds. I love listening to and singing, even though I can't sing, all the Christmas songs. I like to watch choir performances and wonderful entertainers such as "Eclipse", a spectacular a capella group that Lynnsee and I recently attended a concert for , if you ever get the chance, go it will be worth it, ( www.eclipsesingers.com/index.html ). It helped me get in the spirit of Christmas, which I hadn't felt quite yet.

I was reminded of something, that I only needed to drop the last syllable from Christmas and voila...you have the "Spirit of Christ" - the whole reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place, to comemorate the birth of Christ and the gift our Father in Heaven has given to all men...the opportunity for eternal life. When I ponder all this, it humbles me and I truly want to be a more dedicated servant than I am. My gift to you all this year is a heartfelt prayer of love, health, hope, joy and happiness and the means to find strength and comfort in the Lord's tender mercies as He bestows His infinite love upon all. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas Time Already?

So basically we haven't blogged for like...eternity! And Marisa was kind enough to let me know that this afternoon, so I am gonna prove to her that I can blog! :p . So my life has either been really busy, or really boring depending how you look at it. The musical is over (it has been since October) but it was all good! Um... I got sick like I said I would, I still feel like a sack of Icecubes, but theres not much we can do about that... Um... I really don't know what else is going on... We're just livin' and yeah... Well Im' gonna go enjoy the exciting education that homwork provides... so you all have a wonderful day, or night, or whatever. :)

Reflection time

For the past few days, I have been reflecting on a play I saw on Friday night. It was a wonderfully funny and exciting musical play titled "The Ark" and was written by Michael McClean. If you don't know who Michael McClane is, he also wrote and starred in "The Forgotten Carols" another great play with wonderful music which he also wrote. I thought this play was fantastic and if you get the chance you should see it. It was so funny and has a great moral to the story. Anyway, he actually introduced himself and welcomed all the theatre guests and briefly talked about how and why he wrote a play about Noah and the Ark. He talked about the all the problems and difficulties each person faces in their life and we have it in ourselves to overcome them if we just hold on. In the play, there is a moment where Noah's wife has just had it. She's tired of being cooped up in a boat, with the animals, the stink and the mess and etc. etc. As she is talking to him and telling him that she has always stuck with him through everything she doesn't think that she can do it anymore. Noah very tenderly and lovingly assures her as he is singing to her and telling her to just "hold on, hold on . . . the light will come." She is not so sure this time and tells him so, he is going to have to hold on for her, she thinks she is ready to let it all go. It was during this part of the play that I could identify with the feelings this woman is having and when I heard this song it was all I could do to keep from letting go all my emotions, but I kept it in check and only wiped away a couple of tears. (I know I wasn't the only person this affected because I could hear sniffles all around.) I am so glad I went to this play because I really needed to hear this even if it has caused me to reflect on life and such. Somedays it seems like I am ready to let go but I am afraid to because I know better and I know I am not alone. I think I finally realized I don't have to depend solely on myself. I have a Father in Heaven who loves me and has sent his Son to take my burdens upon Himself if only I will allow it. Sometimes, we make things more difficult for ourselves when we don't need them to be and when we have endured what we can, we need to turn it over to the Lord. I think this helps make it easier to "just hold on!"

HEADSHOTS!!!!! :)

So basically today was a fabulously terrific amazing day!!!! Why you may ask? Well the answer is simple... it's headshot day!!!! Like three weeks ago or something the students in the drama department were able to get these amazing glamour shots taken... and i just got mine today!And I am basically dying to show them off cuz they look pretty great!!! :)

Howdy!!! Well I decided that i should blog since i haven't for like... eternity... anyways so i just basically spent a weekend at my dads and i picked pumpkins! HUGE pumpkins! It was pretty awesome... it snowed here today... i'm FREEZING! During this time of year i am famous for having the coldest fingers, so nobody will ever hold my hands because heaven forbid that they will freeze too... but oh well... so i really don't have any exciting news really... i've been pretty busy lately and my life will only get busier for the next three weeks until the school musical is over... it's pretty exausting, and i've realized that after i finish doing a play or a musical i get sick because i was usually busy, but then it's like my life just stops.. and with this being cold season i'm sure i'll be getting sick pretty soon... :( well i believe that is all... TTFN... BYE!

It's Autumn Time, It's Autumn Time...

Autumn is pretty much here as it is indeed the end of September, the temperatures are slowly beginning to drop and you can just smell it arriving in the air, my favorite season of the year--FALL!! The temperatures have been perfect, not too hot and not too cold. It's also harvesting time. While I'm not much of a gardener or food preservist, I am proud to say that yesterday we finished bottling 32 quarts of Peaches and also freezing 8 quarts to make frozen smoothies or what have you. I even made 2 fresh Struesal Peach Pies. (Delish if I have to say so myself), I gave one to my daddy for his birthday and made one for our family to enjoy. Oh the aroma of cinnamon, brown sugar and fresh peaches, it's divine! It calls out to say it is fall!
I love seeing all the leaves change color. You just look out at the mountains and see splashes of greens, yellows, oranges, and bright to dark reds across the whole side of the mountain and it is just screaming for you to take one last ride or hike up there to enjoy the gifts that only nature offers. What beauty. I can't help but thank our Father in Heaven for his brilliance in all the creations and that is when my heart and mind starts to sing and echo the words of the beloved hymn "How Great Thou Art"! I am grateful to be here and enjoy the wonderments of this world. Speaking of wonderments, this is also the best time of year to get a good and restful night's sleep. I love sleeping with the windows opened as the coolness of the night air envelopes our home making the fresh & newly changed sheets on my bed nice & cool, just waiting for me to crawl in at the end of a long and tiring day...ahh such bliss! Go ahead and call me a nerd but when I pray, I do thank my Heavenly Father for my "cool sheets", my comfy down feather pillows and my bed. I see nothing wrong in thanking him for these things! I know without them, I would have a hard time sleeping. And we all know what a grump I can be when I don't get my sleep...my daddy doesn't call me "Sher Bear" for nothin'.

Bottling Peaches... with my mom of course :)

Ok so basically I couldn't think of an insanely awesome title so I just named this page what i have been doing for like the past hour or so... :) bottling peaches... so I am pretty bored... OH! I could totally tell about Homecoming and my birthday, but i don't really want to... but to make two long stories very very short, they both were a BLAST!!!! :) And now I am dating which is pretty awesome! Ok so I got these pics taken like three weeks ago and I think that i'll put like two of them on here ok? Hold on and let me see if i am genius enough to do it... :) Geez! ok so my math is also horrible so basically instead of two pics i am doing five, but they take like fifty years to upload! hmph!




Haha! I did it! :) so yeah that is basically all... :) well i've been working ALOT today, so I am pretty much gonna go now... :) Toodles! :) Have a fantastically wonderfully amazing day! :) My love to you all! ;)

Slipping Thru My Fingers....

Isn't it funny how time can go by so sssllowwwwlyyy one minute and the next it flies right past you and you don't see it coming. Sure I am noticing a few more gray hairs than I would like to see, however, tonight I am in disbelief of just how fast time has gone by. I can't even listen to my "Mamma Mia" CD without my eyes getting a little bit moist when I hear Meryl Streep singing the song, "Slipping Thru My Fingers".
Last night I watched my daughter run out the door with a total stranger eager to leave the home and attend the Homecoming dance. I'm sure her reasons of wanting to leave so quickly had more to do with if she stayed a minute more she might not be able to endure the questions that I was asking of her date. (I thought I did an awesome job of letting her date feel uncomfortable while I asked him questions that he had to be dreading) I am sitting here shaking my head in disbelief ...how in the world is my daughter old enough to go out on a date? Wasn't it just yesterday she started kindergarten? And if that isn't enough to think about add the worry of did I teach my daughter to allow her date to show her respect by being a gentleman and did I tell my daughter what to do if this or that happened or how to properly render her date immovable if the unthinkable occurred? Yikes! I can't help but think if I even so much as blink, that when I open my eyes, she is going to be all grown up, married and starting her own family.

Sorry this pic is blurry, it's my only one of them full length!

Time is too slow for those who wait,

too swift for those who fear.

Time is too long for those who grieve,

and too short for those who rejoice and are happy.

But for those who love, time is not.

~Author unknown~

Lynnsee Lou!!!!

Hello doods! It is myself once again... So pretty much i am amazing at the moment.... I got asked to homecoming last wednesday and i was pretty excited! Here is the story... (please excuse any errors due to grammar and spelling and just enjoy the amazing story) .... One fateful Wednesday night around 10:30 p.m. the doorbell rang and so I ran to answer it, and there on the porch was a bright orange folder indicating that it was "Top Secret, for Lynnsee's eyes only!" As I slowly opened it there was a note inside that said "follow the twine to the scene of the crime." and there tied to the door handle was a line of twine. i followed it all around my yard and down the street
to where it was tied to a yield sign, and there on the ground , surrounded by caution tape, was a dead body outline... like the ones in crime scene investigations... and next to it were the words, "I'm 'dying' to go to homecoming with you! -Matt" so of course being a girl i was very excited so i ran back to my house to call someone and tell them, but in my haste, i forgot that there was twine all over the place and it was dark so i couldn't see it and so i ran into it and cut my wrist open... :( So anyways it was pretty great! But it think that i am most excited about it cuz Matt and I both have the same birthday but he is eight hours older! Anyways i got these really cute headshot pics. taken on friday so maybe i'll have to put some of them on here too when i get them! I think it is really cool cuz the pics are a really good price and instead of just getting like two pics, they give you your whole shoot on a disk! So yeah. So pretty much this weekend i helped with stuff for the play... such as making antlers, you know, like in the Gaston song he says "I use antlers in all of my decorating" yeah i got to help make the antlers out of coat hangers and newspaper/ paper mache. and then i went to Hale theatre and saw the play "big" so cute! and yeah... today my toenails are no longer RED, but a LIGHT PURPLE!!!!! and my fingers are a really dark MAROON color... well... i don;t know what else to say... so yeah... i guess i better finish getting ready for school tomorrow... and be prepared for next weeks blog.. it will be all about my birthday and homecoming, complete with cute pics! TTFN! (i got that quote from tigger off of winnie the pooh) MWAH!!!!

Home again, Home again.....

Well, what can I say? Usually I look forward to coming home after a vacation, however this time, I have to admit, it's a lot harder to want to come home again after such a wonderful trip! I mean there's the household chores, laundry, yardwork and work work just waiting for me, besides, Sandy and I had a great time in San Francisco and I can't wait until we can go and do another trip (we've already discussed a future cruise, Europe, New York, Boston, Hawaii, a Greek isle...you get the picture). Anyone who wants to join in the fun is most welcome, we think it would be great to have this tradition for a annual girl's trip (given we have the time and money, we are planning a big trip to celebrate our 45th b-day.)

Ok so now it is your FAVORITE Lynnsee speaking and I just took over the computer from my mother!!!! WAHAHA! So anyways... yeah. So pretty much i had an awesome time while my mother was on the west coast with out me... it was pretty neat... it rained alot, but i lived... so what is my life like? Well... basically I am going to school and then play practice where i sing and dance like a napkin... (the play is Beauty and the Beast) so i am basically a dancing napkin and a cute one at that... :) so yeah today in particular after I did that i came home and was a perfect little girl (since I am pretty much grounded from the phone and computer at the moment... yeah i wont tell that story...) so i did my chores and homework :( and then i painted my toenails bright RED! YEAH! SO now i am just typing even though i amn't supposed to... Sorry that i use incorrect english and poor grammar and such, but oh well... :) P.S. i am in an honors english class, but I figure that this isn't english class so i could care less how i spell and type and stuff... :) So now you will see a picture of FABULOUS ME!!! Who wouldn't want to?? Hehe... TA- DUH! This was me last year but a more recent one is coming soon. :) TTFN! Mwah! :)

So now that I have returned to the computer, I've sent my perfect daughter off to do the dishes. Can you believe she thinks she has such a rough life with the meanest mother in the world, but that can be a whole other topic for another day. I prefer to remember the fun memories of leaving my heart in San Francisco...here are a few pics enjoy!

The first day of the rest of my life!

Okay, it's a new day and I am trying something new, which is not entirely comfortable for me, however at my daughter's and cousin's encouragement, I have created a blog. So this being the first day of the rest of my life.....what could be better than doing something I've never done before? My cousin Sandy and I are in San Francisco enjoying the time celebrating us! We both are celebrating a monumental birthday and have had fun the past few days seeing the sights.