Families are Forever

This afternoon, Cody and I had the privilege of attending the temple sealing of one of my good friends, Bethany Caswell, and her fiancé (now husband, of course) Benjamin Fuller. Bethany and I went to high school together, swam on the swim team, and her family even lived down the street from mine--I remember many a night spent playing ping pong in her garage and a few clam bakes in their backyard (her family is originally from Rhode Island, and they certainly know how to do a clam bake!). Anyway, Bethany is one of the most amazing girls I've ever known, and she has been a great example to me. It was such a sweet experience to see her be sealed to a righteous young man.

It brought back memories of our sealing, as attending sealings often does, and Cody and I reflected on that wonderful day almost three years ago now. How blessed we are to have the power of God here on earth, able to bind families together forever! And now we have a sweet little boy who is part of our family, who brings us much joy and will do for all eternity. I'm just so grateful to have such wonderful promises made to us and will do all I can to make sure they come true.

And here's a cool collage of photos--they had a little photo booth at the reception, and so we took a few pictures. I don't think we've ever had so many family pictures taken of us, actually. Sorry Joshua's head is covering Cody's in almost every picture...oh, well. We need to get professional ones taken sometime...

I can feed myself!

See how good I did, Daddy? I'm such a pro!
These mashed potatoes are soooooo creamy...

*pictures texted to Mommy's cell phone courtesy of Daddy

17 months!

I haven't blogged in almost two weeks, I just realized. Things have been on the busy side lately, so I apologize for that. Let me run briefly through what has been going on with us.

First off, Joshua is 17 months old today! That means one more month until he can be in nursery while at church, which is rather exciting. Maybe Cody and I will actually be able to pay attention in Sunday School now.

Joshua has also had a high fever for the past few days. We've been keeping him on Motrin, which seems to help, and he's been sleeping a lot--which includes waking up a lot at night because he's too hot and then taking a long nap during the day, which for those of you who know him well know that he has never been a particularly long napper--and being pretty mopey. I hope he gets to feeling better soon. I'm not sure if it's teething-related. We're still waiting on those canines...any day now!

My brother Kendall and his family came to visit for the evening last Wednesday! They have been visiting with Shelly's family down in Hurricane, Utah, and Kendall had a job interview up in SLC so they came up for awhile. It was good to see them...it had been a long time (August 2008). It's fun to see Audrey and Joshua kinda-sorta play together, seeing as how they're only 3.5 months apart. We'll see a lot more of them when we go to Texas in June, and we're hoping Audrey teaches Joshua a few things, just like she did last August (maybe Joshua will be talking by then...hope hope). We're excited to have another niece/nephew on the way, too!

Cody's in classes again, after pulling an awesome GPA last semester--yay! This next semester looks to be pretty tough, especially since two of the classes are first block only, so the assignments are big and tests come quickly (he's even had one already). He stayed up most of last night trying to finish some assignments for his online math class--poor guy, he was so tired this morning. I'm hoping to do all I can to help him keep on top of everything.

My job is still going pretty well...I have a lot to do, which is always nice. And my transcription work has been keeping me busy, too, with about 2 hours almost every night last week. I'm busy, but it's bringing in money for the family, so I'm okay with it.

That's about it for now. Life just keeps on going, and we struggle to keep up. Not much else you can do, huh? =)

Fotos do Josué

It's been awhile since I posted pictures, so I thought I'd put a few up of the latest Joshua shenanigans. First up, he seemed to really enjoy having oven mitts on both of his hands (and please ignore the messiness of the room around him):This is the first time we really let him get into the spaghetti (he's learning to use a fork/spoon, so...yeah). It was definitely fun cleaning him up.These next two pictures were taken on my birthday. I love how he hams it up with his daddy.Joshua enjoys having random things on his head (in this case, a onesie that we took off of him because he dribbled water all over, which is one of his favorite pastimes these days): Just a random, "Hey, what's up?" kind of look here:I just love this face. He's a silly kid.Once again, we gave him apples and caramel. And once again, he got it all over--only this time, he gave himself quite an awesome hairdo. Yeah, he went straight to the bathtub after dinner that night.
And these next two pictures just melt my heart--but I had to put them in to document that he's been a fussy little bugger the past couple of days. He's getting his last four teeth (canines), and he has been miserable. I think he'll be done with teething after this, though, so we're looking forward to that. And he's still so cute, even when he's so upset!That's our son! Thanks for letting us share!

First week at the SOT

I'm all on my own now--cleaned out my old office and have moved into my new ones, and the former Department Secretary has left for good. I haven't had any major hiccups yet, so that's a good thing! I'm liking the environment already...the professors are pretty easy to get along with, and they all seem to enjoy having a good time.

I've even made some really random connections: one of the professor's sisters was in my ward in Campus Plaza from 2001-2003, and one of the student computer guys also had a sister in that same ward. Plus, one of the part-time professors (or lab guys...I'm not exactly sure what his job is) knew my Grandpa Dahle, Great-Uncle Alton, and my mom's cousin Eric in Fruitland, Idaho. It really is a small world after all!

Anyway, my son is smiling at me and looks like he wants to play, so I'm gonna sign off now. Hope everyone has a great weekend!