New Church Calling

After lying low for awhile and hoping I would be forgotten, I got the call from Chris Barker to meet with Brother Terry from the bishopric. Brother Terry ended up having to see too many people at our alotted meeting time, so Bishop Pitt ended up extending the call to me. I was totally unprepared for what he asked me to do. When he asked if I would be a Gospel Doctrine teacher, my heart sunk. I thought for sure that I would be on the activities committee. My previous calling as chorister in sacrament meeting took me out of my comfort zone, but this one takes the cake . I think the Lord keeps challenging me to progress. While I am terrified, at least the Book of Mormon will be the book we are studying and I am excited about that. I was set apart right after church and was comforted to know that my calling was given after prayerful consideration and that Heavenly Father would be there for guidance if I would ask. I will do much studying and praying for guidance.

Frozen Turkey Day Run

So, until I married Heather I had no idea that Thanksgiving Day races even existed. The big thing in her family is for at least someone in the family to run the Turkey Trot (10K) in Mesa Thanksgiving morning. I've made it a goal to some day actually run this race. One of my friends in Colorado talked me into running the Highlands Ranch Turkey Day 5K (his company is one of the sponsors so he could get me in for free). I haven't run in quite a long time, but I agreed nonetheless. We only started training for this race about 6 weeks before it started, but we were confident that we could at least finish. Well, Thanksgiving morning came around and so did the below freezing temperatures (the high for the day was only going to be 32 degrees). The race started at 9:00 am and it was bitter cold. I have never run anywhere with so many layers on. Despite the cold, I did finish the race (under 40 minutes which was my only goal). I think running a 5K in below freezing is somewhat equivalent to a 10K in Arizona, right?

My first Ambulance ride

On November 8th Ella and I were doing laundry in the morning. She loves to help me take the clothes out of the dryer and put them in the basket. Well, after all the clothes were in the basket I put Ella in the basket which I then put on top of the dryer. I turned my back to get the hangers on the door and Ella jumped out of the basket. She did a nose dive onto the tile floor and knocked herself out. I couldn't bring her back so I called 911, she was unconscious for 3-5 minutes. The paramedics, EMT squad, fire truck, police cars all came to the rescue. We had a living room full of trained professionals. Ella did not know what was going on until twelve men huddled over her. She was then assessed and taken to the ambulance. We had a bumpy ride to Primary Childrens Hospital and Spencer met us there. Ella recieved a sticker from the paramedics which she held onto the entire day. Long story short... after neck xrays and a CT scan Ella was just fine, not even a bump or a bruise. Thats the last time Ella gets to sit on the dryer.

Elder's Quorum Fun

So I had one of the most interesting experiences teaching Elders Quorum today. I was teaching lesson 20 from the Spencer W. Kimball manual on "The Women of the Church". First, this was a difficult lesson to teach since it was really geared towards women and I had to teach it to a bunch of men. Second, probably 95% of the men in Elders Quorum are married, but there are some that are not (either never been married and a couple that are divorced). So that adds to the complexity of teaching this lesson.

The lesson started out ok until about 10 minutes into it. After one guy made a comment regarding the good things that a woman can bring to a family and church, another man got up and, very vocally, stormed out. Apparently he's going through a rough divorce right now and didn't appreciate the fact that we were talking about the good things about women (I found this out after the fact).

I think I'll chalk this up as one of the most "interesting" things that has ever happened to me teaching a class in church.

Toilet Paper Fun

Ella Jane loves to help me clean. When we clean the bathrooms...... For some odd reason, she knows when I put a new roll of toilet paper on the dispenser. She has discovered how to unroll the ENTIRE roll of TOILET PAPER. She has done this now many times. Spencer and I have now learned to shut the bathroom doors. We started with Ella's bathroom. She figured out that there is another bathroom by mommy and daddy's room. We have since learned to close that door as well.

Ella likes to make a mess with anything she can get her hands on! I caught her in the act of unrolling the toilet paper and couldn't help but laugh when she jumped....I scared her when I took the picture! She is such a cutie...even when she makes a mess! :)

I promised

I don't know why but I have the hardest time with pictures when I'm pregnant. I love seeing everyone else's preggo pictures but it's like torture to get me to take any of myself. But, I promised Kim so here's me and my belly

Teaching an "Old" Dog New Tricks

I know this may sound silly, but I made it a point that when I got married I would always put the toilet seat down. It was just a small thing that I knew I could do to add a little more happiness to my marriage. How have I been doing over the last few years? Excellent. It's a shocker when Heather finds that I haven't put the seat down.

But all that has changed over the past couple of months. I am now in trouble if I put the toilet seat down. Why? Well, given the nature of pregnancy, Heather has been making more frequent late night trips to the pot. Given that she is barely half awake during these midnight runs, she is quickly awaken when she sits down on the cold, closed lid. I've now been repremanded for keeping the lid closed. Unfortunately, this has been a really hard habit to break. In fact, I've only successfully done it once.

Only two more months!

Halloween in Denver

We had a fun Halloween, Thomas was a lion and really got into it.
He had so much fun trick-or-treating and getting candy. Earlier that day he had had a little stomach ache so we made him wait until today to eat any of his loot. When we got up in the morning I flipped on some cartoons so I could jump in the shower before breakfast when I came back downstairs this is what I saw

He had found the candy but at least he sat at the table to eat it. He's a funny kid.

Halloween costumes

So every Halloween some BYU students think they need to dress up to go to class... I, of course, am not one of them. Anyways, it was interesting to see all of the different costumes. I was on my way to the JSB when right in the middle of the lawn I saw a pink and blue power ranger totally going at it. They were full on fighting... it was pretty crazy! So if you ever want any attention on Halloween (besides the little attention from dressing up) then definitely dress up as power rangers and start beating each other up.